The Sympathizer Audiobook By Viet Thanh Nguyen cover art

The Sympathizer

A Novel

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The Sympathizer

By: Viet Thanh Nguyen
Narrated by: Francois Chau
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Now an HBO® Original Limited Series on Max, and winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, a startling debut novel featuring one of the most remarkable narrators of recent years: a conflicted subversive and idealist working as a double agent in the aftermath of the Vietnam War.

The winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, as well as seven other awards, and now an HBO® Original Limited Series on Max, The Sympathizer has sold over one million copies worldwide and is one of the most acclaimed books of the 21st century. With the pace and suspense of a thriller and prose that has been compared to Graham Greene and Vladimir Nabokov, The Sympathizer is a sweeping epic of love and betrayal. The narrator, a communist double agent, is a “man of two minds,” a half-French, half-Vietnamese army captain who comes to America after the fall of Saigon, and while building a new life with other Vietnamese refugees in Los Angeles is secretly reporting back to his communist superiors in Vietnam. The Sympathizer is a blistering exploration of identity and America, a gripping spy novel, and a powerful story of love and friendship.

©2015 Viet Thanh Nguyen (P)2025 Simon & Schuster Audio Espionage Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Movie, TV & Video Game Tie-Ins Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense United States World Literature Imperial Japan
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This is a hard read. I liked the first half but struggled to finish the second part.

A hard read.

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Brilliant! Unapologetically fierce! I will be rereading. I cannot praise this amazing piece of writing enough.

Recommended With No Reservations

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Not much the length and details were very good the narrator was excellent and I just wanted to keep reading!

Fascinating perspective and compelling story

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Very hard to listen to. Thr book jumps all over the place and the narrator is very monotone.

Very slow

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Slog of a book. Only the very beginning and very end were interesting. I listened to the audiobook at 2x the speed just to get through the misery faster.

Boring

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