To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other

To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other - Hardcover

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To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other
  • To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other
To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other - Hardcover

To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other - Hardcover

by Viet Thanh Nguyen
$26.95
$26.95

Book Overview

Shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer comes a moving and unflinchingly personal meditation on the literary forms of otherness and a bold call for expansive political solidarity.

Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans.

The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary question: What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are, by turns, literary, historical, political, and familial.

Each piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen's craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother's mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, and Maxine Hong Kingston, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer's responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless--or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the "minor" writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to "model minorities" such as Asian Americans, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars.
ISBN9780674298170
Author Viet Thanh Nguyen
PublisherBelknap Press
GenreEducation and Literature
FormatHardcover
PublishedApril 2025
LanguageENG- English
Pages144
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Literary Criticism Nonfiction Social Science

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More by Viet Thanh Nguyen

To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other

To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other - Hardcover

To Save and to Destroy: Writing as an Other - Hardcover

By Viet Thanh Nguyen

About Viet Thanh Nguyen

Viet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. He is the author of The Committed, which continues the story of The Sympathizer, awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, alongside seven other prizes. He is also the author of the short story collection The Refugees; the nonfiction book Nothing Ever Dies, a finalist for the National Book Award; and is the editor of an anthology of refugee writing, The Displaced. He is the Aerol Arnold Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations. He lives in Los Angeles.

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