The Sympathizer
The Sympathizer
Book for:
June 2017 Group 2
May 2021 Group 4
February 2017 Group 1
January 2017 Group 3

is a South-Vietnamese Army captain exiled in Los Angeles after the fall of Saigon: now he works as an aide and hit man for an also exiled Vietnamese ex-general, as an adviser to the movie industry, and as a communist spy. The story is framed as a confession addressed to a figure called the Commandant, who, as it becomes clear, is keeping the captain prisoner in an unknown location.

The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize.

About the Author
Viet Thanh Nguyen

is a Vietnamese American novelist and academic. He was born in Buon Me Thuot, Vietnam in 1971. After the fall of Saigon, in 1975, the family fled to the United States. Nguyen received his Ph.D. in English from UC Berkeley in 1997. He is Associate Professor of English, and of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.