Viet Thanh Nguyen: A Conversation about War, Art and Justice

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and numerous other awards. 

Nguyen's most recent publication is A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial. His other books are the sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed; a short story collection, The Refugees; Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction); and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. 

Nguyen has also published two children’s books: Chicken of the Sea, written in collaboration with his son, Ellison, and Simone, named for his daughter. 

He is a University Professor at the University of Southern California. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, he is also the editor of The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives.

This fall, from September 20-22, 2024, UIC's Social Justice Initiative presents a pivotal gathering as a thousand artists, activists, and scholars converge in Chicago to culminate the Portal Project.

This two-year, movement-driven symposium has ignited debates, dialogue, and collective envisioning on critical questions of justice, power, solidarity, and change. 

This gathering aims to transcend the traditional boundaries of both academia and activism, hosting our convergence that connects scholar-activists with community-based and movement-focused intellectuals and artists. Speakers will discuss a range of issues, including—abolition, economic democracy, climate justice, feminism, racial justice, and the threat of authoritarianism. 

Learn more and register to attend.

The Social Justice Initiative (SJI) at the University of Illinois at Chicago advances racial and social justice by nurturing intellectual insurgency and furthering the production of knowledge that seeks to change the world. 

Their work is centered around connecting scholars and activists inside and outside of the university with community-based social change agents in our city, country, and globally.

Learn more.