Pulitzer Prize-winning author Nguyen to visit Weber State
OGDEN, Utah — Award-winning and bestselling author Viet Thanh Nguyen will deliver a public reading Nov. 14 at 7 p.m. in the Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater. A reception in his honor will be held at 6:30 p.m.
Nguyen will also hold a reading Nov. 13 at 7 p.m. at the Monarch, located at 455 25th St. in Ogden.
Both events are hosted by the Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities Hurst Artist-in-Residence program and are free to the public. .jpg)
Nguyen may be best known for his debut novel, The Sympathizer, a New York Times bestseller and multiple award-winning book, including the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English, and a professor of English, American Studies and Ethnicity, and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California.
Nguyen’s other works include the short story collection, The Refugees, and The Committed, a sequel to The Sympathizer. The Sympathizer is currently being made into an HBO miniseries co-produced by Robert Downey Jr.
During his visit to campus Nov. 13–15, Nguyen will also meet with students and discuss his new memoir, A Man of Two Faces.
“Viet Thanh Nguyen has emerged as one the literary world’s most prominent public intellectuals in the United States and beyond” said Michael Wutz, English professor at Weber State University. “If most readers know him for his debut novel The Sympathizer, he has since released an equally astonishing cluster of works that have remapped the American literary imagination in the same way they have helped reframe global discussions about what it means to be an immigrant. Erudite, empathetic, and profoundly personal and public at the same time, his work reminds us to put the human at the center of the humanities and to recognize the plight of refugees the world over, as they search for stability and security, home and peace.”
Hosted by the Lindquist College, Nguyen’s visit is funded through the generosity of an endowment from Dean and Carol Hurst. Each year, the Hurst Artist-in-Residence program offers students an opportunity to learn from and work with a prominent figure from different artistic disciplines.
John Kowalewski, Marketing & Communications
801-626-7212, jkowalewski@weber.edu- Contact:
Deborah Uman, Lindquist College
801-626-6424, deborahuman@weber.edu