This novel, like all daring novels, is a Trojan Horse, whose hidden power is a treatise of global futurity in the aftermath of colonial conquest. Fierce in tone, capacious, witty, sharp, and deeply researched, The Committed marks, not just a sequel to its groundbreaking predecessor, but a sum total accumulation of a life devoted to Vietnamese American history and scholarship. This follow-up to his seminal The Sympathizer is Nguyen at his most ambitious and bold. Marlon James, Booker Prize-winning author of A Brief History of Seven Killings A sequel that goes toe to toe with the original then surpasses it. An unblinking examination of the dangers of belief, and the need to believe. An unflinching look at redemption and damnation. A white hot literary thriller disguised as a searing novel of ideas. ![]() Laila Lalami, author of The Other Americans, finalist for the National Book AwardĬall The Committed many things. A deep, compelling and humorous portrait of how we are shaped by fictions others have for us. ![]() Viet Thanh Nguyen gives us an unsparing look at the poisonous effects of ideology - whether colonialism, communism, or capitalism - even as he explores the deep-seated need we all have to believe in something. Set in 1980s Paris, it follows the characters from The Sympathizer as they try to fashion new lives among all the wretched of the earth. The Committed is a rich and exhilarating story of friendship, loyalty, and greed. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise - but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen, from the oppression of the state, to the self-torture of addiction, to the seemingly unresolvable paradox of how he can reunite his two closest friends, men whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition.īoth literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position in the firmament of American letters. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. ![]() There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. The long-awaited new novel from one of America's most highly regarded contemporary writers, The Committed follows the Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris as a refugee. The Committed is the long-awaited sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sympathizer
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