The Sympathizer Add a review

The Sympathizer is the 2015 debut novel by Vietnamese-American professor and writer Viet Thanh Nguyen. It is a best-selling novel, and recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The novel received positive reviews from critics. It was named on more than 30 best book of the year lists and a New York Times Editor's Choice.

The novel incorporates elements from a number of different novel genres: mystery, political, metafiction, dark comedic, historical, spy, and war. The story depicts the anonymous narrator, a North Vietnamese mole in the South Vietnamese army, who stays embedded in a South Vietnamese community in exile in the United States. While in the United States, the narrator describes being an expatriate and a cultural advisor on the filming of an American film, closely resembling Platoon and Apocalypse Now, before returning to Vietnam as part of a guerrilla raid against the communists.

The dual identity of the narrator, as a mole and immigrant, and the Americanization of the Vietnam War in international literature are central themes in the novel. The novel was published 40 years to the month after the fall of Saigon, which is the initial scene of the book.

The novel was adapted as a television miniseries of the same name starring Robert Downey, Jr., which premiered on HBO in April 2024.

A sequel, titled The Committed, was published on March 2, 2021.