"…Cynical as he is of the world that he encounters, he's also pretty cynical and critical of himself. And that manifests itself in that sense of humor that you're talking about not a light-hearted sense of humor, but a very cynical and dark sense of humor, a sense of the absurd." Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer and The Committed (now out in paperback), among other books, joins us on the show to riff on the return of his unnamed narrator, why he followed his prize-winning spy thriller with a crime novel set in 1980s Paris, how his novels are in conversation with Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the American canon, his literary inspirations and much more with Poured Over's host, Miwa Messer.

Featured Books:

Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee

American Spy by Lauren Wilkerson

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carré

The Land at the End of the World by António Lobo Antunes

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us her for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays.)

A full transcript of the show is available here.