Pulitzer-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses Asian American experiences

Books

Published: 19 Jun. 2023, 13:13 Updated: 19 Jun. 2023, 17:01

Pulitzer-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses Asian American experiences

Viet Thanh Nguyen, center, talks about Asian diaspora and American literature at the Seoul International Book Fair in Coex, southern Seoul, on Saturday [LEE JIAN]

Books saved Viet Thanh Nguyen's life, the Vietnamese American author said at the Seoul International Book Fair at Coex in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on Saturday.

"Books and stories offered me an escape from the drudgery and occasional terror of refugee life that I witnessed."

His debut novel, "The Sympathizer" (2015), won the Pulitzer Prize and inspired the eponymous HBO series directed by Park Chan-wook, starring actors like Sandra Oh and Robert Downey Jr.

The book is a "layered immigrant tale told in the wry, confessional voice of a "man of two minds" — and two countries, Vietnam and the United States," according to the Pulitzer Prize.

"The narrator is someone whose political beliefs clash with his individual loyalties. In dialogue with but diametrically opposed to the narratives of the Vietnam War that have preceded it, 'The Sympathizer' offers an important and unfamiliar new perspective on the war: that of a conflicted communist sympathizer."

The sequel, "The Committed," was published in 2021.

It is fiction but based on Nguyen's experiences throughout his American life which he describes as that of a "refugee" instead of an "immigrant."

"I was four years old when I was carried from Saigon to a refugee camp at a military base called Fort Indian Camp, and my memories begin at this refugee camp," he said. "[Calling] oneself an immigrant in the United States locates you at the core of American mythology: America as a land of immigrants, where anyone can succeed and attain the American Dream. The standard Asian American narrative is that we, having immigrated to the United States, have been marked as perpetual outsiders and foreigners, subjected to periodic bursts of anti-Asian hate crimes."

Viet Thanh Nguyen speaks to the press on June 15, in Jung District, central Seoul [YONHAP]

Nguyen is interested in society's contradictions and duality on individuals, especially Asian Americans.

"Storytelling that is both an act of truth and betrayal defines Asian American literature, much of which is largely focused on family secrets and trauma generated by cultural hardships, the hardships of immigration, the sufferings of war, colonization, poverty and famine in the countries of origin," he said.

"Americans, like everyone else, prefer not to see their nation as having its origin in violence, conquest, genocide and slavery. Even if they acknowledge these crimes, many will still say that America is based on freedom, democracy and a land of opportunity. Both realities can be true at the same time, and it is in this contradiction that horror and hope, brutality and beauty, that Asian Americans and literature are born and reborn."

Nguyen said he grew up watching his parents work 13, 14-hour shifts at a grocery store seven days a week. Down the street from the grocery store, he recalled a shop owner put a sign that read, "Another American was driven out of business by the Vietnamese."

On one Christmas Eve, a thief shot his parents in their store, and his mother had to visit the psychiatric clinic three times in her American life.

"There is nothing unusual about me and my parents' life. Thousands, maybe millions of refugees and immigrants have experienced similar or even worse things," he said. "Their stories are the basis of Asian American literature and culture ... Writing as fighting and writing as grieving are two of the most important tasks of Asian American literature."

"The greater challenge of Asian American writers is to portray and betray the open secret of the United States: the American Dream is a euphemism for settler colonialism and the military-industrial complex. Can Asian American literature and culture confront that euphemism and reveal the open secret, the open secret that Asian Americans are invested in protecting? This is the 21st-century challenge for Asian American literature, culture and politics."

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]