Viet Thanh Nguyen

So writing is for me a very joyful experience but it also is very boring in a lot of ways.

You sit in a room by yourself and

and you just sit and you put words on paper and it goes on and on and on, and you realize it never ends.

If you're a writer, it never ends.

I think myself as a writer, I hope I write until I die, but it just means doing the same things over and over, but there's joy to be found in that repetition, in that drill, in that discipline.

There is joy to be found in the act of creation, but the act of creation is not, you know, it can be an extremely difficult, difficult thing.

It should be a difficult thing to make something.

And actually, I think it's a lot harder to create something than it is to destroy something.

So I found it, yes, I do find it joyful to have the opportunity to speak and to have people listen to me, to hear my opinions, but also to hear my version of the history that involves Americans and Vietnamese people, this complicated, tragic history that we share together.

But the other thing that's brought me joy over the last 10 years, besides the writing and the art, is the fact that I became a father, which I thought would end my life.

Literally, my son was born three days after I finished The Sympathizer.

Because when I realized that he was going to be born, I thought, oh, my life is over.

I'm not going to be able to do anything ever again.

And so I needed to finish this novel before he arrived.

But the thing about becoming a father is that I realized there is joy to be found in other people.

There's joy to be found in the act of giving.

And there's joy to be found in realizing that, in fact, I'm not as emotionally numb as I thought I was as a consequence of being a refugee.

So being a father forced me to confront my emotions, forced me to be able to give love to other people,

And personally, that's very healing.

But also as a writer, emotions are crucial.