Learning Lunch with Viet Thanh Nguyen

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Learning Lunch with Viet Thanh Nguyen

Join acclaimed author Viet Thanh Nguyen for a free lunch and discussion.

By Moss Arts Center

Date and time

Thursday, March 16, 2023 · 12 - 1pm EDT

Location

Cube, Moss Arts Center

190 Alumni Mall Blacksburg, VA 24060

About this event

Join acclaimed author Viet Thanh Nguyen for a free lunch and lecture on his personal and professional journey in higher education.

Livestream option available; Zoom link will be provided to registrants.

Co-sponsored by the Department of English Visiting Writer Series, with additional support from the Asian Cultural Engagement Center, Mozaiko Living-Learning Community, and Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies.

About Viet Thanh Nguyen

Acclaimed author Viet Thanh Nguyen’s writing is bold, elegant, and fiercely honest. Globally reimagining what we thought we knew about the Vietnam War, his remarkable debut novel, The Sympathizer, is a New York Times best seller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Nguyen’s voice is refreshing and powerful as he urges readers to examine the legacy of that tumultuous time and its aftermath from a new perspective.

Nguyen and his family came to the United States as refugees during the Vietnam War in 1975. As he grew up in America, he began to notice that most movies and books about the war focused on Americans while the Vietnamese were silenced and erased. He was inspired by this lack of representation to write about the war from a Vietnamese perspective, globally reimagining what we thought we knew about the conflict.

The New York Times says that his novel, The Sympathizer, “fills a void…giving voice to the previously voiceless while it compels the rest of us to look at the events of forty years ago in a new light.” His voice is refreshing and powerful as he urges readers to examine the legacy of that tumultuous time and its aftermath from a new perspective. The audacious novel has also been described by The Guardian as having a “Whitman-like multiplicity” as it “reads like the absolute opposite of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.” The Committed, the long-awaited follow-up to The Sympathizer, was published in 2021 and has been called “a masterwork” and “revelatory.”

Nguyen’s book, Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Author Ari Kelman praises Nothing Ever Dies, saying it “provides the fullest and best explanation of how the Vietnam War has become so deeply inscribed into national memory.” Nguyen's collection of short stories, The Refugees, explores questions of immigration, identity, love, and family. In 2018 Nguyen called on 17 fellow refugee writers from across the globe to shed light on their experiences, and the result is The Displaced, a powerful dispatch from the individual lives behind current headlines, with proceeds to support the International Rescue Committee.

Nguyen is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant. The MacArthur Foundation noted that his work “not only offers insight into the experiences of refugees past and present, but also poses profound questions about how we might more accurately and conscientiously portray victims and adversaries of other wars.” Along with teaching at the University of Southern California, he works as a cultural critic-at-large for The Los Angeles Times. Nguyen lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

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In addition to this event, Viet Thanh Nguyen will speak at the Moss Arts Center on Thursday, March 16 at 7:30pm. For more information or to purchase tickets, please visit this page.

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Related event:

Are you interested in working with non-profit organizations who serve displaced communities? Join the Global Education Office and Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies for a free dinner and information session on Wed, March 15 from 5:30-7:00 PM in the Geo Conference Room to learn more about a Fall 2023 study abroad program in Paris, France. RSVP to theof22@vt.edu.

Organized by

Virginia Tech’s Moss Arts Center presents renowned artists from around the globe and from close to home, with a special focus on experiences that expand cultural awareness and deepen understanding. Uniquely partnered with the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology, the Moss Arts Center houses the Street and Davis Performance Hall and its Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre, visual art galleries, the experimental venue the Cube, and research studios.

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