The Secret to Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Overnight Success
The novelist seemed to go from unknown to MacArthur genius in two years. In truth, it took decades.
by Joe Fassler
From: Electric Literature
This month, the novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen was awarded one of the most prestigious honors a writer can receive: the MacArthur “genius” grant, given to artists, thinkers, and public intellectuals whose ideas have culture-altering potential. This, in itself, should surprise no one. Nguyen writes with arresting moral and intellectual force, often about people scarred and uprooted by conflict. As the MacArthur Foundation put it in its citation, Nguyen’s demonstrated a unique gift for exploring how depictions of the Vietnam War “often fail to capture the full humanity and inhumanity, the sacrifices and savagery, of participants on opposing sides.”
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In this Podcast From Blog Talk Radio Los Angeles poet Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo talks about an exciting new adventure she is undertaking taking this month. Bermejo was selected for the first ever National Parks Poetry Residency in partnership with National Parks Arts Foundation, Poetry Foundation, and Gettysburg National Military Park. Starting September 15th she’ll be living in a log cabin in Gettysburg for three weeks writing resistance poetry.
Los Angeles Literature 