The value of my book and myself had changed, even if the book remained as invaluable to me as when I wrote it. It aimed to destroy the American perspective on the Vietnam war, which influences how most of the world sees the country. The Sympathizer can be read as a spy novel, a war novel, an immigrant novel, a novel of ideas, a political novel, a campus novel, a novel about the movies, and a novel, yes, about other novels. My book was to be the Vietnam war novel for everyone who thought they knew what this war was about, as well as for everyone who didn’t want to read a book about an exhausted subject. This overreaching mixture leads to occasional missteps that matter little set against the greater result: a bold, artful and globally minded reimagining of the Vietnam war and its interwoven private and public legacies.

Source: The Guardian July 26, 2016 10:41 UTC