Time Sensitive

Viet Thanh Nguyen on the Need to Recognize Coexisting Truths


Listen Later

At age 4, following the fall of Saigon, in 1975, Viet Thanh Nguyen and his family fled Vietnam and came to the U.S. as refugees. Throughout the turmoil and its aftermath, neither he nor his family could have imagined that he would go on to not only become an internationally renowned novelist—winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for his debut novel, The Sympathizer (2015)—but also to serve as an executive producer of an HBO miniseries adaptation of the book, and become a widely respected voice on matters including anti-Asian hate, refugees and immigrants, war and genocide, and memory and memorials. In addition to The Sympathizer, Nguyen has written, among other books, the new memoir A Man of Two Faces (2023); The Sympathizer’s sequel, The Committed (2021); and the nonfiction title Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (2016). 

On the episode, Nguyen talks about turning The Sympathizer into an HBO miniseries, the polarities between what he calls “narrative plenitude” and “narrative scarcity,” and jokes as a form of truth-telling.

Special thanks to our Season 9 presenting sponsor, L’École, School of Jewelry Arts.

Show notes:

Viet Thanh Nguyen

[3:43] “An Open Letter on the Situation in Palestine”

[3:43] Min Jin Lee

[5:48] F. Scott Fitzgerald

[7:11] The Sympathizer

[7:11] The Sympathizer HBO series

[7:11] Robert Downey Jr.

[7:11] Sandra Oh

[8:41] A Man of Two Faces

[8:41] Casualties of War

[8:41] Apocalypse Now

[8:41] Platoon

[8:41] The Deer Hunter

[11:48] Arundhati Roy

[14:18] 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

[21:33] Fall of Saigon

[33:34] The Great Gatsby

[37:26] Portnoy’s Complaint

[40:28] Great America amusement park

[47:24] Maxine Hong Kingston

[51:06] Chicken of the Sea

[51:06] Simone

[56:19] Operation Petticoat

[56:19] I Was a Male War Bride

[56:19] Catch 22

[56:19] Richard Pryor

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

Time SensitiveBy The Slowdown

  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9
  • 4.9

4.9

148 ratings


More shows like Time Sensitive

View all
On Being with Krista Tippett by On Being Studios

On Being with Krista Tippett

10,331 Listeners

Design Matters with Debbie Millman by Design Matters Media

Design Matters with Debbie Millman

1,229 Listeners

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry by David Naimon, Tin House Books

Between The Covers : Conversations with Writers in Fiction, Nonfiction & Poetry

448 Listeners

Hyperallergic by Hyperallergic

Hyperallergic

146 Listeners

The Week in Art by The Art Newspaper

The Week in Art

193 Listeners

Emergence Magazine Podcast by Emergence Magazine

Emergence Magazine Podcast

472 Listeners

Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast by David Zwirner

Dialogues: The David Zwirner Podcast

397 Listeners

City Arts & Lectures by City Arts & Lectures

City Arts & Lectures

390 Listeners

Talk Art by Russell Tovey and Robert Diament

Talk Art

492 Listeners

The Great Women Artists by Katy Hessel

The Great Women Artists

510 Listeners

The Art Angle by Artnet News

The Art Angle

331 Listeners

A brush with... by The Art Newspaper

A brush with...

133 Listeners

NOTA BENE: This Week in the Art World by Benjamin Godsill & Nate Freeman

NOTA BENE: This Week in the Art World

139 Listeners

The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein by Dan Rubinstein

The Grand Tourist with Dan Rubinstein

253 Listeners

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud by Bella Freud

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

192 Listeners