TIME

The empathizer

VIET THANH NGUYEN HAD A PRETTY spectacular 2016: his debut novel, The Sympathizer, about a Vietnamese double agent who goes to California after the Vietnam War, won the Pulitzer Prize after selling only 22,000 copies in hardcover. Thanks to that and other plaudits, the book has now sold almost 400,000 copies.

Nguyen hasn’t wasted time putting out a follow-up, though it was a long time in

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