Viet Thanh Nguyen

I look back upon this history of writers that I admire and a lot of writers that I admire never got those big prizes.

James Baldwin.

Everybody loves James Baldwin now, right?

Everybody loves James Baldwin.

He barely got any literary prizes when he was writing.

And people totally misunderstand James Baldwin.

They don't understand this man fled the United States as a refugee from what he experienced in terms of American racism.

He fled in the 40s.

He fled again in the 70s.

He spent a lot of his life in Turkey and in France.

He exiled himself because of what he saw here, because he spoke the truth.

So these are the kinds of writers I admire.

I don't know what, maybe Baldwin won prizes, but he didn't get them.

And, you know, it's that conviction of trying to use your art to make it the best that it can be because art is about both beauty and truth.

And those two things are inseparable.

I believe that with a passion.

And so that in the end, I hope, is what would drive me more than this aspiration for prizes.

Joy is also a complicated thing.

You can take a pill and it'll give you joy and then it wears off and you feel like garbage after that.

And joy can also be something that you work at and joy can be complicated and multi-layered.