Which novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016?

Which novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016? The Sympathizer won the award.

Published in 2015, the novel is narrated by an unnamed Vietnamese communist agent who serves as an aide to a South Vietnamese general while secretly reporting to communist superiors. After the fall of Saigon, he relocates to the United States, where his divided loyalties continue to shape his life.

The novel blends espionage, historical fiction, satire, and a conflicted immigrant narrative. Its narrator is famously a “man of two minds,” caught between Vietnam and the United States, nationalism and ideology, friendship and betrayal. The book also challenges familiar American-centered interpretations of the Vietnam War.

The most likely mix-up is with Nguyen’s sequel, The Committed, published in 2021. The Refugees is his short-story collection, while The Orphan Master’s Son was Adam Johnson’s 2013 Pulitzer winner. The Sympathizer was Nguyen’s debut novel and made him the first Vietnamese American to win the fiction prize.