The Sympathizer

The Sympathizer series follows an unnamed Vietnamese Communist double agent whose loyalties are fractured by war, exile, revolution and colonial memory. The Sympathizer opens with the fall of Saigon and follows him into refugee life in Los Angeles, continued espionage, the American film industry and a dangerous return to Vietnam. The Committed resumes his story in Paris in 1981, where he and his blood brother Bon enter the criminal underworld while the narrator confronts the competing legacies of communism, capitalism and French colonial rule. Together the novels combine spy fiction, political satire and crime with a sustained examination of the Vietnam War and its aftermath.