Viet Thanh Nguyen

It's just entertainment for Americans.

It's dark entertainment, but it's entertainment for Americans.

And The Committed is set in Paris, and most Americans are like, France?

What's France?

So actually, for me, let me put this another way.

I think of myself as a writer, not as a novelist or as a short story writer or as a critic or something.

I think of myself as a writer above all else.

And all my books are just part of one larger book.

They're like, well, my books are chapters of some larger book that only exists in my head.

So I think of The Sympathizer and The Committed and A Man of Two Faces and Nothing Ever Dies as all chapters.

No, The Sympathizer, definitely when I finished, at that point I thought, that's the best thing I've ever written.

I loved writing that book.

When I finished The Man of Two Faces, I thought, that's the hardest thing I've ever written.

I feel viscerally ill.

Because I'm exposing myself and my family in that book.

I felt, I mean, like when I say viscerally ill, I mean, I felt it in my gut, my stomach, bringing that book to other people to read it for the first time.

I felt terrified.

And that made me think, this is a pretty good book.

If I'm terrified as a writer, I'm telling the truth, you know?

So, yeah, I'm being a politician answering your question.