The Sympathizer

By: Viet Thanh Nguyen

Narrated by: Francois Chau

*** WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016***
WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL 2016
WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION 2016

'A fierce novel written in a refreshingly high style and charged with intelligent rage' Financial Times

It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong. The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.


'A bold, artful and globally minded reimagining of the Vietnam war . . . The Sympathizer is an excellent literary novel, and one that ends, with unsettling present-day resonance, in a refugee boat where opposing ideas about intentions, actions and their consequences take stark and resilient human form' the Guardian

'Beautifully written and meaty'
Claire Messud

'[A] remarkable debut novel . . . In its final chapters, The Sympathizer becomes an absurdist tour de force that might have been written by a Kafka or Genet'
New York Times

'This debut is a page-turner (read: everybody will finish) that makes you reconsider the Vietnam War ... Nguyen's darkly comic novel offers a point of view about American culture that we've rarely seen'
Oprah.com (Oprah's Book Club Suggestions)

©2015 Viet Thanh Nguyen (P)2024 Hachette Audio UK

Graphic violence you can feel

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would not recommend this book and would not listen to or read it again. That said, the vocabulary and drawn comparisons were both brilliant. It was however overshadowed by too much violence which I did not feel comfortable with.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Learning a side to the Viet Nam war I was unfamiliar with.... least was the heavy dose of descriptive VIOLENCE

Would you listen to another book narrated by Francois Chau?

yes

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

no

Compelling, complex and never dull!

Though all the characters felt like real people, the first person narrator brought new levels of complexity and intrigue. The writing is witty, poetic and at times viciously satirical—but that never detracts from the tension of the story. In my mind this novel is up there with Vonnegut’s Breakfast Of Champions and Camus’ The Fall.

Vietnam and human consciousness.

Viet Thanh Nguyen poetically shows how the US genocide in Vietnam marked a turning point in the human story. Global Consciousness was altered, great novel.

magnificent

The writing is rich, artful, and playful. Jumping between withering sarcasm to visceral scenes to philosophical pondering with elegance and grace. This is a brilliant work of decolonization literature and so much more.

Fantastically enjoyable; uncannily disturbing

Poetic that it’s narrated by the dharma scientist from Lost (who reads fabulously by the way). This is as surreal as that show, but as real as human history. Singularly literary, with belly laughing jokes à la Douglas Adams, and horrifically disturbing sequences, it’s the most literarily significant piece I’ve read in many years.