October 18, 2021
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen to read from his work 4 p.m. Friday, Oct. 22
On Friday, Oct. 22, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen will read from his work at 4 p.m. via Zoom.
The event is free and open to the public. Visit k-state.edu/english/visit/ for the live stream link.
Nguyen and his family came to the United States as refugees during the Vietnam War in 1975. His experience in American culture inspired him to share a Vietnamese perspective through his award-winning writing.
His debut novel "The Sympathizer" won the Pulitzer Prize, was a Dayton Literary Peace Prize winner and made the finalist list for the PEN/Faulkner award. According to The New York Times, it "fills a void…giving voice to the previously voiceless while it compels the rest of us to look at the events of forty years ago in new light."
"The Committed," the long-awaited follow-up to "The Sympathizer," was published in 2021 and has been called a "masterwork" and "revelatory."
"Viet Thanh Nguyen is not only a star of the contemporary fiction world but is also one of the most important cultural thinkers of our moment," said Michele Janette, professor of English. "Drawing on both personal experience and scholarly research, he offers us insights on topics ranging from refugee knowledges to the role of aesthetics in contemporary literature, to global ethical responsibility, to the shaping of memory. We are extraordinarily fortunate to have this opportunity to talk with him now, as we grapple with another refugee exodus, this time from Afghanistan."
For more information about Nguyen's work, visit his website.
The reading is sponsored by the Student Association of Graduates in English, the Department of English, and the K-State Student Governing Association.