The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the
Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, which has now
sold over one million copies worldwide With insight, humour, formal
invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Nguyen rewinds the
film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by
acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and
ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark
sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional
openness about his life as a father and a son. At the age of four,
Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Mê
Thu?t and come to the USA as refugees. After being removed from his
brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is
later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San
José. But there is violence hidden behind the sunny façade of
what he calls AMERICAâ„¢. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine,
while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have
been shot while working at their grocery store, the Sà iGòn
M?i, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a
sticker gun. Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stirring drama
of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen
into an existential crisis: how can he be both American and
Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he
learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam, and
ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his
parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries
increasingly about their comfort and care, and realizes that some
of their older wounds are reopening. Resonant in its emotions and
clear in its thinking about cultural power, A Man of Two Faces
explores the necessity of both forgetting and of memory, the
promises America so readily makes and breaks, and the exceptional
life story of one of the most original and important writers
working today.
General
Imprint: |
Corsair
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
March 2024 |
Authors: |
Viet Thanh Nguyen
|
Dimensions: |
240 x 156 x 22mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
400 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4721-5564-1 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
1-4721-5564-5 |
Barcode: |
9781472155641 |
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!