Viet Thanh Nguyen and the Memory of War

“We are living through a relatively xenophobic moment in American culture, but there’s still a great deal of acceptance for the idea of the immigrant in American society,” Nguyen says. “Refugees are different. I think, partly, it's because the idea of refugees is anathema to the American dream—we can't imagine that this country could be a country that produces refugees. Telling that story allows me to weave my life into the life of the country.”

Nguyen is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English at the University of Southern California, where he teaches courses in American studies, ethnicity, and comparative literature. He is the author of eight books, including The Sympathizer, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2016; its sequel, The Committed, which was published in 2021; and Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, which serves as a companion to his recent novels. He is also the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations and numerous teaching awards.

Prior to his lecture, Nguyen visited Professor Nancy Bristow’s U.S. and the War in Vietnam history course. He spoke with students about the long shadow the war has cast over American foreign policy and pop culture, parallels to today’s conflicts in the Middle East, and the power of storytelling to inform and persuade.

“If you can entertain readers, it helps to bring their guard down,” Nguyen says. “That capacity for storytelling to get us to identify with other people and to put ourselves into other situations is crucial to directly addressing divisive issues and getting people to think about what the other side is experiencing.” 

In his book Nothing Ever Dies, Nguyen writes, “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” The theme of unreliable memories and how they shape our understanding of what is true also came up in a conversation with faculty members when Nguyen joined an interdisciplinary group of professors to discuss the blurry line between fiction, nonfiction, and memoir in his own work. 

Hosted by Professor of English Priti Joshi and Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Monica DeHart, the faculty seminar is part of their three-year James Dolliver National Endowment for Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professorship, which is centered around the theme, “What’s in a Fact?”

Faculty participants were invited to read a short story and an excerpt from a memoir that Nguyen is currently writing and talk about what truths fiction allows and what it might obscure. In their discussion, attendees found resonance with their own teaching and scholarship.

“One of the things we discussed was the fragmentary nature of memory,” Joshi says. “Fiction is supposed to be made up; history is supposed to be factual; and memoir lies between fiction and history. But the facts and memories those memoirs are based on are often unreliable. Nguyen was a terrific facilitator for this discussion because he’s someone who probes the malleability of memory.”

“I really appreciated the way that Dr. Nguyen helped me think about the relationship between history, memory, and these contemporary truths that we keep building,” DeHart says. “It was also a great way to bring us together as scholars. It certainly enriches our campus to engage in these discussions.”

Visiting college campuses like Puget Sound reminds Nguyen of how a liberal arts education can inspire people to think globally and make connections with the diverse experiences of others, which is the also what he hopes to accomplish with his writing about the war in Vietnam and its aftermath.

“Higher education gives us a greater sense of awareness beyond our own locale, whether it's our community or our nation. If we think about how education is not only for our own self-interest but about our role as citizens, or as residents of the world, then we have to think critically about our place in the world,” Nguyen says. “America was born from a set of noble ideals about democracy and freedom, but the country is also born from a history of warfare, colonization, genocide, and slavery, and a lot of Americans are either ignorant of that history or want to deny it. To both acknowledge these fundamental origins and then try to figure out what to do about them is the conversation we need to be having.”