To Save and to Destroy

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (now an HBO series) 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.

A series of emotional tales that makes palpable [Nguyen’s] intellectual understanding of an artist’s role in the political discourse and the way politics works its way into art. -- Erin Vanderhoof Vanity Fair
An essential addition for collections about the process and theory of writing, authors of diverse backgrounds, and particularly the experiences of Asian Americans, immigrants, and refugees in the United States. -- Rebecca Brody Library Journal (starred review)
One of contemporary American fiction’s most fearless writers of conscience…explores the idea of the outsider in literature. Literary Hub
Nguyen explores works of literature that he has found most useful and inspirational in helping him define his worldview, his political and literary aesthetics. -- May-lee Chai Star Tribune
Profound…Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through literary, historical, political, and familial lenses…while addressing concerns about the writer’s responsibility in a time of violence and the burdens and pleasures of the “minor” writer in society. Poets & Writers
A meditation on what it means to be “the other,” both in establishing necessary distance, as well as being cast aside by stigma and outside perceptions… Nguyen invites his audience to seriously consider the pitfalls and promises of writing as an other. -- Anson Tong Chicago Review of Books
Seamlessly weaves together personal reflections and literary analysis…thought-provoking and cogently argued. Publishers Weekly
A provocative exploration of the writer as storyteller, anthropologist, and knowing outsider. Kirkus Reviews
A profound exploration of identity, displacement, and the burdens of belonging from one of the most important voices in contemporary literature. Nguyen brilliantly weaves together personal history with literary criticism and political commentary to confront the complexities of race, power, and solidarity in America. This is essential reading. -- Reza Aslan, author of Zealot and An American Martyr in Persia
Viet Thanh Nguyen offers insight into how we can form allegiances beyond racial identity to global solidarities built from shared struggles against colonialism. As we now face the precipitous erosion of American democracy, Nguyen's incendiary and generous intellect is more necessary than ever. -- Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Brilliant, rigorous, and generous, To Save and to Destroy is part autobiography, part criticism, and wholly illuminating. A dazzling feat from one of today’s great writers and thinkers. -- R. O. Kwon, author of Exhibit

Viet Thanh Nguyen is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer, Nothing Ever Dies, and, most recently, To Save and to Destroy. A recipient of the MacArthur Foundation and Guggenheim fellowships and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Nguyen is Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

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