South Beach Sessions - Viet Thanh Nguyen
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How does Viet Thanh Nguyen's refugee identity shape his storytelling?
Kings Network.
Welcome again to South Beach Sessions. We have got a teacher. We're going to learn something here today. And a Pulitzer Prize winning author, Viet Thanh Nguyen is with us. And you can go to VietNguyen.info if you want his works that include a book that is now out. And the book that you won the Pulitzer Prize with, with your debut novel, The Sympathizer. You're somebody... refugee is sort of part of your identity publicly so thank you for joining us interesting times in america i'm being diplomatic now i can't imagine how you're experiencing what it is that you're witnessing but right before we turned on the cameras you were talking about how similar uh cubans and vietnamese people are what have been your observations there
Well, Dan, first of all, thanks for having me. With the observations, well, you know, Cubans ended up in Florida, and most of the Vietnamese, or the largest community who fled from Vietnam in 1975, ended up in California. So we're literally on opposite sides of the coast. Both communities are dominated by their anti-communist factions. And both have been using that kind of anti-communism, both to cement their cultural communities where they are, but also to advance their political interests in the United States. And obviously the Cubans have been actually much more effective at doing that than the Vietnamese Americans have.
What impact did winning the Pulitzer Prize have on Viet's life?
So we have a few politicians, but nothing on the scale of Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz. And the ability of the Cuban exile community to determine a great degree of American politics is something that I think a certain portion of the Vietnamese community would envy.
Tell me about winning the Pulitzer Prize and how it is that it changed your life to have a debut novel that you wrote a little bit later into your writing career, but still your debut novel to win that prize. Like what happened to your life at that point? And did you know the book was good?
I knew the book was good. I thought the book was very good. But winning a prize is completely arbitrary, as I'm sure you're aware. So it's obviously nice to win prizes. I would never turn down a prize, especially the Pulitzer, which completely transformed my life. But now I serve on the Pulitzer board and we give out Pulitzer prizes. And I've served in other juries for prizes. And I'm quite aware that it's quite arbitrary in many ways. So how did it change my life? Well, I mean, the Pulitzer is, especially for fiction, for the novel, people care about it.
How does Viet Nguyen view the importance of sharing refugee stories?
so just having winning that prize meant more eyeballs were on the book and the book had done very well it had been reviewed uniformly positively um it had made a big impact already but a big impact impact for literary work you know you're lucky if you sell 25 or 100 000 copies which the book did do but after the pulitzer it won it sold a million copies and it turned into a tv series you know for hbo i've been my trajectory has been completely transformed because of that book
The reason I asked, did you know it was good, which might seem like a stupid question, is because a lot of writing comes with doubt and insecurity. And I talk to a lot of writers who, for whatever reason, aren't totally sure that what they've made is, never mind prize winning, just worthy of being read by others in a way that meets community standards.
I spent 17 years writing a short story collection called The Refugees before I wrote The Sympathizer. And everything you said is true. That was a horrible, miserable experience. The book itself is actually pretty good, I think, according to readers as well. But it was how I learned to write. I suffered all the agony and the doubt and the fear that you described. And then at the end of that process, I thought I wrote this book partly for me, but also partly for the community of Vietnamese readers, but other people who have influence who can publish the book. And that is a very human experience to do something for other people. But at the end of that, I thought, I've had it. I'm going to write my next book for myself.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
How does Viet Thanh Nguyen's refugee identity shape his storytelling?
0:04–1:44
2
What impact did winning the Pulitzer Prize have on Viet's life?
1:44–2:46
3
How does Viet Nguyen view the importance of sharing refugee stories?
2:46–4:17
4
What themes are explored in Viet's latest book, 'To Save and to Destroy'?
4:17–5:33
5
How does Viet Nguyen discuss the challenges of the refugee experience?
5:33–6:54
6
What role does discipline play in Viet's writing process?
6:54–7:40
7
How does Viet Nguyen address the complexities of being an American?
7:40–9:05
8
What does Viet Nguyen believe about the power of storytelling?
9:05–1:08:16
Speakers
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