Join the Harvard Club of San Francisco Reading Group to discuss “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen
VIRTUAL
San Francisco location will be sent two days before the meeting to those who RSVP. Please note this location will not be wheelchair accessible.
Sunday, November 20
4:30-6:00 pm
HCSF Members: Free but RSVP required
Non-Members: $10
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The Sympathizer
Viet Thanh Nguyen
384 Pages
2015
It’s April 1975, and Saigon is about to fall to the Communists. 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. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s astonishing novel takes us inside the mind of this double agent, a man whose lofty ideals necessitate his betrayal of the people closest to him. 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. (Publisher)
2016 Pulitzer Prize For Fiction
Meeting Organizer:
Kirsten Miclau
kirstenmiclau@yahoo.com