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Join Kundiman and Asian American Writers’ Workshop for an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer. Nguyen’s most recent book is Chicken of the Sea, co-authored with his elementary-aged son Ellison and illustrated by mother-son pair Thi Bui and Hien Bui-Stafford. In this wide-ranging conversation, Nguyen will discuss this multi-generational collaboration as well as his fiction and nonfiction writing.

Viet Thanh Nguyen is a butler, the Alfred to Ellison’s Batman. When he is not butlering, Viet teaches, writes books, gives lectures around the country, and dreams that he might one day draw as well as Ellison. Viet is the author of The Sympathizer, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Edgar Award for First Novel, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the California Book Award for First Fiction, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He lives in Los Angeles.

Swathi Khurana is a writer, artist, and Tarot reader. Her writing has been published in The New York Times, Guernica, and in Good Girls Marry Doctors. Her piece “Sex, Death, and Social Stationery” was a Notable in Best American Essays 2019. Her work has been supported by NYFA/NYSCA, Center for Fiction, Jerome Foundation, Bronx Arts Council, Center for Books Arts, and Vermont Studio Center. Swati was a founding member of the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC). She lives in New York City, where she is writing her first novel, editing flash fiction, developing a podcast, and daydreaming with her third-grade daughter Shalini.

Click here to RSVP. There is a $5 suggested donation at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. All donations go to AAWW public programs. More information here.