The Sympathizer: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)

Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Sympathizer is a debut novel from Viet Thanh Nguyen. The story follows a communist double agent—a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain—who arranges to come to America after the Fall of Saigon. While building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles, he secretly reports back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. The novel explores themes of identity and America through the perspective of a conflicted narrator described as a "man of two minds." It combines the pace and suspense of a thriller with literary prose. The book also won the 2016 Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, among other awards.