Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War

New
Illustrated
2017
$23.94

Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, National Book Award in Nonfiction A New York Times Book Review The Year in Reading Selection All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War-a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both nations. [A] gorgeous, multifaceted examination of the war Americans call the Vietnam War-and which Vietnamese call the American War...As a writer, [Nguyen] brings every conceivable gift-wisdom, wit, compassion, curiosity-to the impossible yet crucial work of arriving at what he calls `a just memory' of this war. -Kate Tuttle, Los Angeles Times In Nothing Ever Dies, his unusually thoughtful consideration of war, self-deception and forgiveness, Viet Thanh Nguyen penetrates deeply into memories of the Vietnamese war...[An] important book, which hits hard at self-serving myths. -Jonathan Mirsky, Literary Review Ultimately, Nguyen's lucid, arresting, and richly sourced inquiry, in the mode of Susan Sontag and W. G. Sebald, is a call for true and just stories of war and its perpetual legacy. -Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

Synopsis

Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist, National Book Award in Nonfiction A New York Times Book Review The Year in Reading Selection All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer comes a searching exploration of the conflict Americans call the Vietnam War and Vietnamese call the American War-a conflict that lives on in the collective memory of both nations. [A] gorgeous, multifaceted examination of the war Americans call the Vietnam War-and which Vietnamese call the American War...As a writer, [Nguyen] brings every conceivable gift-wisdom, wit, compassion, curiosity-to the impossible yet crucial work of arriving at what he calls `a just memory' of this war. -Kate Tuttle, Los Angeles Times In Nothing Ever Dies, his unusually thoughtful consideration of war, self-deception and forgiveness, Viet Thanh Nguyen penetrates deeply into memories of the Vietnamese war...[An] important book, which hits hard at self-serving myths. -Jonathan Mirsky, Literary Review Ultimately, Nguyen's lucid, arresting, and richly sourced inquiry, in the mode of Susan Sontag and W. G. Sebald, is a call for true and just stories of war and its perpetual legacy. -Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)

$23.94

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 400
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: Harvard UP
Published: 30 Nov 2017
ISBN 10: 0674979842
ISBN 13: 9780674979840

Media Reviews

In Nothing Ever Dies, Nguyen has written a powerful meditation on the manner in which memories are produced, cultivated, even empowered and subdued...He's a lucid and robust voice for the forgotten--forgotten people, forgotten places, and forgotten memories most of all...Nothing Ever Dies is one man's powerful entreaty to a country which has seen nearly endless conflict (one war running upon the next) for generations.--Matthew Snider PopMatters (05/25/2016)
Is there hope for an ethics of memory, or for peace? Nothing Ever Dies reveals that, in our collective memories of conflict, we are still fighting the Forever War. Nguyen's distinctive voice blends ideas with family history in a way that is original, unique, exciting. A vitally important book.--Maxine Hong Kingston, author of To Be a Poet
Inspired by the author's personal odyssey, informed by his wide-ranging exploration of literature, film, and art, this is a provocative and moving meditation on the ethics of remembering and forgetting. Rooted in the Vietnam War and its aftermath, it speaks to all who have been displaced by war and revolution, and carry with them memories, whether their own or of others, private or collective, that are freighted with nostalgia, guilt, and trauma.--Hue-Tam Ho Tai, editor of The Country of Memory: Remaking the Past in Late Socialist Vietnam
Nothing Ever Dies provides the fullest and best explanation of how the Vietnam War has become so deeply inscribed into national memory. Nguyen's elegant prose is at once deeply personal, sweepingly panoramic, and hauntingly evocative.--Ari Kelman, author of A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek
Beautifully written, powerfully argued, thoughtful, provocative.--Marilyn B. Young, author of The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990
In Nothing Ever Dies, his unusually thoughtful consideration of war, self-deception and forgiveness, Viet Thanh Nguyen penetrates deeply into memories of the Vietnamese war...[An] important book, which hits hard at self-serving myths.--Jonathan Mirsky Literary Review (07/01/2016)
Nothing Ever Dies is an account of humanity at its darkest, a realm of war, memory, identity and pain that ventures from the jungles of Vietnam to the killing fields of Cambodia.--Jeffrey Fleishman Los Angeles Times (11/14/2016)
By taking the reader on a sweeping and sobering global tour of artifacts, places, art, texts, and monuments associated with Vietnam, Nguyen argues that our cultural need to reflect accurately upon our history and fully absorb its lessons is forever at war with the impossibility of ever fully knowing the truth, or retelling it accurately...Cautioning that we cannot remember what we do not see, he lists the ways in which the U.S. has failed to fully recognize its own role in Vietnam, let alone the Vietnamese citizens it ostensibly went to Vietnam to protect...It's fitting that Nothing Ever Dies has emerged at a moment when the U.S. and most of Europe are fiercely questioning America's ability to reconcile with the past. Nguyen might say that the only way we can truly acknowledge the past is to contend with how fallible our memories actually are.-- (11/16/2016)

Author Bio

Viet Thanh Nguyen is Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. His novel The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.