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| Festive table with money!!! (see Diane below) |
Lori treated us to marvelous Vietnamese fare as we gathered to discuss Viet Thanh Ngyuen's, "The Sympathizer". Our group had not all read the challenging award winning novel, but those that had the dip into Ngyuen's world of the spy-sympathizer, agreed his crafting was a mind-boggling feat. Ngyuen, himself, born in Vietnam but raised in the USA, coming here as a refugee with his family at the age of four, has been steeped in dual identity, a mighty theme in the book. I urge you to read this book if you haven't; the racial/cultural stereotyping, the history, the betrayals, and of course the language, i.e. the writing, are all remarkable.
Well-attended, the meeting did not linger on the heaviness of the book for long!
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| Our Star-hostess Lori |
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| Diane discovers her money! |
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| Rare appearance of Kim..... |
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| and Jan! |
A little discussion ensued about the Pulitzer Prize and its requirements. I learned that it is given to an American writer, for work preferably dealing with American life (Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See" was honored in 2015 and not American life but so beautiful!) Please check out everything you wanted to know about the Pulitzer Prize from wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize
Also a link to the announcement that a Vietnamese immigrant won the prize (note the vocabulary at the bottom; site is for English learners- interesting!)
https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/vietnamese-immigrant-first-book-wins-pulitzer-prize/3292920.html
More about the winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature:
http://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/219
Which led me to find this great piece about what really happened in 2012 when no award was given:
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/letter-from-the-pulitzer-fiction-jury-what-really-happened-this-year
Lori's suggestions for an upcoming selection:
"the book that matters most" by Ann Hood *chosen
"Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi
"The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
Up next:
Happy reading!
LK
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