The Committed

'A voice that shakes the walls of the old literary comfort zone' New Yorker 'Goes toe to toe with the original then surpasses it. A masterwork' Marlon James, Booker Prize-winning author of a Brief History of Seven Killings 'Fierce and unrelentingly good. Hilarious and subversive' Tommy Orange, New York Times bestselling author of There There ------------------------------------ It's the early 1980s and the Sympathizer arrives in Paris. As a refugee, he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their turbulent pasts by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. Falling in with left-wing intellectuals and politicians at dinner parties held by his French Vietnamese "aunt", he finds customers for his merchandise as well as stimulation for his mind. But this new life he's living has unforeseen dangers of oppression, addiction and the seemingly unresolvable paradox of reuniting his two closest friends, men whose world views stand them poles apart. The highly suspenseful sequel to The Sympathizer, both 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.

About the Author :
Viet Thanh Nguyen is the author of the short story collection The Refugees and the novel The Sympathizer. The Sympathizer is a New York Times best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Other honors include the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, a Gold Medal in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and the Asian/Pacific American Literature Award from the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association. His other books are Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction) and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

Review :
The Committed is a rich and exhilarating story of friendship, loyalty, and greed. 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. 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. A deep, compelling and humorous portrait of how we are shaped by fictions others have for us. - Laila Lalami, author of The Other Americans, finalist for the National Book Award