In this conversation with RevDem editor Ferenc Laczó, Viet Thanh Nguyen – author of the new book A Man of Two Faces. A Memoir, A History, A Memorial – reflects on the ambiguities and contradictions of growing up Vietnamese-American in the aftermath of what is called the Vietnam War in the US; explains what motivated him to seek a new balance between remembering and forgetting in his new book; shares his ethical considerations regarding the revelation of secrets; shows why self-representation is not enough; and discusses how his dialectic Marxism wavers between Groucho and Karl.

Viet Thanh Nguyen (Vietnamese: Nguyễn Thanh Việt) is a Vietnamese-American professor and novelist. He is the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He is the author of the scholarly monograph Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War and the novel The Sympathizer, among several other books.

A Man of Two Faces. A Memoir, A History, A Memorial has been published by Grove Press.

In collaboration with Lucie Hunter.

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