Viet Thanh Nguyen

Viet Thanh Nguyen, born on March thirteenth, nineteen seventy-one, is a distinguished South Vietnamese-born American novelist and literary scholar. He currently holds the prestigious Aerol Arnold Chair of English and serves as a Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

Nguyen's literary prowess was first recognized with his debut novel, The Sympathizer, which garnered the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in two thousand sixteen, along with numerous other accolades including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. His contributions to literature were further acknowledged when he received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship in two thousand seventeen.

In addition to his literary achievements, Nguyen is a prominent voice in contemporary discourse, regularly contributing op-eds to The New York Times on topics such as immigration, refugees, politics, culture, and Southeast Asia. His influence extends to academia, where he was elected as the first Asian American member of the Pulitzer Prize Board in its one hundred three-year history in two thousand twenty.

In two thousand twenty-three, Nguyen made history again by being the first Asian American to headline the Charles Eliot Norton Lecture Series at Harvard University, further solidifying his role as a leading figure in both literature and education.