The Sympathizer

这并非一部谍战爽文，而是一面照向"夹缝中人"的镜子。主人公是越共安插在南越败逃人群中的卧底，却在逃亡洛杉矶后，发现自己既回不去故园、也融不进美国：被当作政治符号征用，又被当作异类打量。读者最津津乐道的，正是这种"两面性"被反复撕开的窘迫——他替革命写观察报告，却在好莱坞式的美国里迷失坐标；他一边效忠意识形态，一边忍不住嘲讽双方的荒诞。作者以近乎刻意的繁复笔调，让"忠诚""身份""谁有资格定义越南"这些命题在黑色幽默中层层发酵。它适合那些不愿被非黑即白的战争叙事打发、想看清"胜利与失败之外"的人；也适合对移民、种族与文化认同有切身体会者。读罢你会明白：所谓"同情者"，恰是那些无处安放的中间地带。

Viet Thanh Nguyen is the author of the novel The Sympathizer (Grove Press, 2015). He also authored Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America (Oxford University Press, 2002) and co-edited Transpacific Studies: Framing an Emerging Field (University of Hawaii Press, 2014). An associate professor at the University of Southern California, he teaches in the departments of English and American Studies and Ethnicity. He has been a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (2011-2012), the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard (2008-2009) and the Fine Arts Work Center (2004-2005). He has also received residencies, fellowships, and grants from the Luce Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, the Asian Cultural Council, the James Irvine Foundation, the Huntington Library, the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Creative Capital and the Warhol Foundation. His short fiction has been published in Manoa, Best New American Voices 2007, A Stranger Among Us: Stories of Cross-Cultural Collision and Connection, Narrative Magazine, TriQuarterly, the Chicago Tribune, and Gulf Coast, where his story won the 2007 Fiction Prize. His writing has been translated into Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Spanish, and he has given invited lectures in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Germany. He is finishing an academic book titled War, Memory, Identity.