The Sympathizer – Viet Trans Nguyen

the-sympathizer-viet-trans-nguyenThis is a brilliant book, winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, about the aftermath of the Viet Nam war from the point-of-view of Vietnamese people. The narrator is a Communist double agent who flees to America after the fall of Saigon, and then returns to Viet Nam to be subjugated to the extreme brutality of a Re-Education Camp. This book has a brilliant presentation of politics and ideology, moral ambiguity, and the existential crisis of leading a double life that is complex, compelling and frustrating. The legacy of war is presented in graphic detail.