The Sympathizer

In The Refugees, Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to lives led between two worlds, the adopted homeland and the country of birth. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of immigration. The second piece of fiction by a major new voice, The Refugees is a beautifully written and sharply observed book about the aspirations of those who leave one country for another, and the relationships and desires for self-fulfillment that define our lives.

'Meisterhaft. DER SYMPATHISANT ist zum Klassiker bestimmt.' T.C. BoyleIm April 1975 wird eine Gruppe südvietnamesischer Offiziere unter dramatischen Bedingungen aus Saigon in die USA geflogen. Darunter ein als Adjutant getarnter kommunistischer Spion. In Los Angeles soll er weiterhin ein Auge auf die politischen Gegner haben, ringt jedoch immer mehr mit seinem Doppelleben, den Absurditäten des Spionagewesens, der Konsumgesellschaft und seiner eigenen Identität. Bald gerät er zwischen die Fronten der Ost-West-Politik und findet sich schließlich in aussichtsloser Mission in seinem Heimatland wieder, die einen ganz anderen Verlauf nimmt, als geplant ...Jetzt von HBO verfilmt: Eine 'lebenssprühende, glaubwürdige und doch oft kühne' Adaption, 'die dem brillanten Roman des ausführenden Produzenten Nguyen in Anspruch und Ausführung in nichts nachsteht.' (Time Magazine)

Shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism<BR><BR>From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer comes a moving and unflinchingly personal meditation on the literary forms of otherness and a bold call for expansive political solidarity.<BR><BR>Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans.<BR><BR>The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary question: What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are, by turns, literary, historical, political, and familial.<BR><BR>Each piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen's craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother's mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, and Maxine Hong Kingston, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer's responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless-or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the "minor" writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to "model minorities" such as Asian Americans, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars.

'Call The Committed many things. A white hot literary thriller disguised as a searing novel of ideas. An unflinching look at redemption and damnation. An unblinking examination of the dangers of belief, and the need to believe. A sequel that goes toe to toe with the original then surpasses it. A masterwork' Marlon James, Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings<BR><BR>The long-awaited new novel from one of America's most highly regarded contemporary writers, The Committed follows the Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise - but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen, from the oppression of the state, to the self-torture of addiction, to the seemingly unresolvable paradox of how he can reunite his two closest friends, men whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition.<BR><BR>Both literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position in the firmament of American letters.<BR><BR>'Here it is, with perfect timing, a novel that anyone who is part of a colonising or colonised nation - and that includes, of course, America - should read . . . Nguyen is a craftsman . . . And then there's the sharp humour . . . Like The Sympathizer, it amounts to much more than the sum of its parts. These two novels constitute a powerful challenge to an enduring narrative of colonialism and neo-colonialism. One waits to see what Nguyen, and the man of two faces, will do next' the Guardian<BR><BR>'If The Sympathizer was ostensibly a spy novel, then The Committed is a gangland thriller . . . Two contemporary classics for your bedside table' The Telegraph, five star review

'In un paese dove i beni di proprietà erano l'unica cosa che contasse, non avevamo niente che ci appartenesse, a parte le storie'. È l'affermazione di una giovane vietnamita che, in fuga dagli orrori della guerra, si imbatte nell'esperienza di ogni rifugiato: scoprire di non possedere niente, se non le storie, raccontate dai genitori o serbate nel proprio personale ricordo. Storie che mostrano l'incapacità di voltare le spalle al passato, alle persone e alle cose del vecchio mondo perduto. L'impossibilità dell'oblio che, come un macigno, pesa sulla necessaria ricerca di nuove appartenenze, attraversa da cima a fondo tutte le storie narrate in questo libro. Il giovane Liem impara a conoscere sé stesso solo appropriandosi di una lingua diversa dalla sua, una lingua con cui si può dire che due maschi sono una coppia 'in senso romantico'. La proprietaria del New Saigon Market, uno dei pochi posti a San José dove i vietnamiti possono trovare il riso Jasmine e l'anice stellato, vede riapparire i fantasmi della guerra nella persona della signora Hoa, ossessionata dall'idea di vendicare il figlio ucciso dai comunisti. Claire Carver, figlia di un nero dell'Alabama e di una giapponese, sta cercando di risolvere il problema di essere 'di razza mista' in un mondo deciso ad assegnare a ciascuno il posto che gli spetta. La febbrile ricerca di una nuova identità da parte di persone con 'due facce e due menti diverse', al cuore di tutta l'opera di Viet Thanh Nguyen, dal Simpatizzante a Io sono l'uomo con due facce, riemerge con potenza in queste straordinarie pagine dedicate ai 'rifugiati sparsi in tutto il mondo'. Das Urheberrecht an bibliographischen und produktbeschreibenden Daten und an den bereitgestellten Bildern liegt bei Informazioni Editoriali, I.E. S.r.l., oder beim Herausgeber oder demjenigen, der die Genehmigung erteilt hat. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.