The Refugee Experience

https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/acrl2019-viet-thanh-nguyen-refugee-experience/

📷 The Refugee Experience | American Libraries Magazine americanlibrariesmagazine.org

The keynote speaker on April 11 at the Association of College and Research Librarian (ACRL) Conference in Cleveland was Vietnamese American Viet Thanh Nguyen, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and a Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction in 2016 for his debut novel The Sympathizer, which ...

In a keynote speech for the Association of College & Research Libraries (#ACRL) Conference earlier this month, Vietnamese American author and Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen addressed the contradicting realities of American life- « its beauty as well as its brutality ». As a refugee of the Vietnam War, some of Nguyen’s earliest memories began at age four when he was placed in an internment camp in Pennsylvania and separated from his parents and older brother. While Nguyen credits his painful childhood experiences with helping sharpen his writing sensibilities, he recalls the unforgettable trauma of being torn from his family during such a vulnerable time. #Vietnamrefugees