Literary Hub
Literary Hub
  • Craft and Criticism
    • Literary Criticism
    • Craft and Advice
    • In Conversation
    • On Translation
  • Fiction and Poetry
    • Short Story
    • From the Novel
    • Poem
  • News and Culture
    • History
    • Science
    • Politics
    • Biography
    • Memoir
    • Food
    • Technology
    • Bookstores and Libraries
    • Film and TV
    • Travel
    • Music
    • Art and Photography
    • The Hub
    • Style
    • Design
    • Sports
  • BUY A HAT
  • Lit Hub Radio
    • The Lit Hub Podcast
    • Awakeners
    • Fiction/Non/Fiction
    • The Critic and Her Publics
    • Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
    • Memoir Nation
    • Beyond the Page
    • First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
    • Thresholds
    • The Cosmic Library
    • Culture Schlock
  • Reading Lists
    • The Best of the Decade
  • Book Marks
    • Best Reviewed Books
  • CrimeReads
    • True Crime
    • The Daily Thrill
  • Log In
  • Craft and Criticism
  • Fiction and Poetry
  • News and Culture
  • Lit Hub Radio
  • Reading Lists
  • Book Marks
  • CrimeReads
  • Log In
Viet Thanh Nguyen: Most American Literature is the Literature of Empire

Viet Thanh Nguyen: Most American Literature is the Literature of Empire

“An imperial literature prefers the realism of showing the imperfect domesticity within an American empire.”

By Viet Thanh Nguyen | April 11, 2025

Viet Thanh Nguyen on Finding the Foreign in Ourselves and Those Most Like Us

Viet Thanh Nguyen on Finding the Foreign in Ourselves and Those Most Like Us

“That is the joy of otherness, an awareness that even seeing oneself face to face means that the very notion of otherness is present.”

By Viet Thanh Nguyen | April 10, 2025

Viet Thanh Nguyen on the Cover of His New Memoir

Viet Thanh Nguyen on the Cover of His New Memoir

“It often feels like a cover designer I have not met has captured some dimension of the book I have not been aware.”

By Viet Thanh Nguyen | April 4, 2023

Back to School for Everyone: Writers and the World with Viet Thanh Nguyen

Back to School for Everyone: Writers and the World with Viet Thanh Nguyen

On Writing as Commitment to Both Art and Politics

By Viet Thanh Nguyen | September 6, 2022

Viet Thanh Nguyen on What David Wong Louie Meant to Him at 20

Viet Thanh Nguyen on What David Wong Louie Meant to Him at 20

Reading Pangs of Love and Discovering Asian American Literary Voices

By Viet Thanh Nguyen | June 21, 2019

Viet Thanh Nguyen: How Not to Bore Your Audience at a Reading

Viet Thanh Nguyen: How Not to Bore Your Audience at a Reading

Channel Obama. Perform. Drink if You Must.

By Viet Thanh Nguyen | April 9, 2019

Best Reviewed
Books of the Week

  • The Rest of Our Lives
  • Call Me Ishmaelle
  • Homeschooled: A Memoir
  • The Spy in the Archive: How One Man Tried to Kill the KGB
  • Watching Over Her
  • American Reich: A Murder in Orange County, Neo-Nazis, and a New Age of Hate

Vietnamese and Vietnamese American Lit: A Primer from Viet Thanh Nguyen

By Viet Thanh Nguyen | February 10, 2017

The Prophecy of Martin Luther King, Jr., From Vietnam to Iraq

By Viet Thanh Nguyen | April 4, 2016

    • Thinking Outside the Cop: Using Game Wardens in Crime FictionJanuary 13, 2026 by Sarah Crouch
    • Make Our Villains Gayer, Please: Reclaiming the Trope of Queer-Coded AntagonistsJanuary 13, 2026 by Isha Raya
    • Ross Montgomery on Researching Profanity, Halley's Comet, and Writing Historical FictionJanuary 13, 2026 by Alex Dueben
    • The Rest of Our Lives
    • The Best Reviewed Books of the Week
    • "Poignant Tender The final line of em The Rest of Our Lives em is by…"
  • Literary Hub

    Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature


    Masthead

    About

    Sign Up For Our Newsletters

    How to Pitch Lit Hub

    Advertisers: Contact Us

    Privacy Policy

    Support Lit Hub - Become A Member