The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen: loyalty and duality

The Novel Tea

Neha and Shruti discuss The Sympathizer, the 2016 Pulitzer winner for fiction, through the themes of loyalty and duality. This book is a thriller and a satire, following a mixed race narrator who moves to the United States after the fall of Saigon, and must navigate his identity and his role as a communist spy. We talk about the book's historical context, its commentary on race and pop culture, and more.

Links:

Interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen [NPR]

Shelf Discovery:

The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

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