WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2016WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL 2016WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE IN FICTION 2016'A fierce novel written in a refreshingly high style & charged with intelligent rage' Financial Times It is April 1975 & Saigon is in chaos At his villa a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey & 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 & his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles unaware that one among their number the captain is secretly observing & 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 & 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 & a moving love story The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds & examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature film & the wars we fight today'A bold artful & globally minded reimagining of the Vietnam war The Sympathizer is an excellent literary novel & one that ends with unsettling present-day resonance in a refugee boat where opposing ideas about intentions actions & their consequences take stark & resilient human form' the Guardian' Beautifully written & 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' Oprahcom (Oprah's Book Club Suggestions)