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The Sympathizer
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Francois Chau
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
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Publisher's summary
Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2016
A profound, startling, and beautifully crafted debut novel, The Sympathizer is the story of a man of two minds, someone whose political beliefs clash with his individual loyalties.
It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.
The Sympathizer is the story of this captain: a man brought up by an absent French father and a poor Vietnamese mother, a man who went to university in America, but returned to Vietnam to fight for the Communist cause. A gripping spy novel, an astute exploration of extreme politics, and a moving love story, The Sympathizer explores a life between two worlds and examines the legacy of the Vietnam War in literature, film, and the wars we fight today.
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The geographical region that comprises Asia is vast and varied—and so are the stories that have emerged from it. And as the continent consists of more than 50 countries, it is nearly impossible to narrow down a list of the best Asian literature. So, for this collection, we’ve elected to highlight the wonderful works crafted by authors who are from the East Asian region or are of East Asian descent. We’ve chosen some of the greatest works by genre to get you started.
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Rasa spends his days translating for Western journalists and pining for the nights when he can sneak his lover, Taymour, into his room. One night Rasa's grandmother - the woman who raised him - catches them in bed together. The following day Rasa is consumed by the search for his best friend, Maj, a fiery activist and drag queen star of the underground bar Guapa, who has been arrested by the police.
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Guapa
- By Mah Maass on 08-25-16
By: Saleem Haddad
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When Heaven and Earth Changed Places
- A Vietnamese Woman's Journey from War to Peace
- By: Le Ly Hayslip, Jay Wurts
- Narrated by: Nancy Kwan
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Abridged
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This haunting memoir tells the brutal story of the Vietnam War from the perspective of an innocent victim whose childhood was dominated by violence, devastation, and conflicts between the teachings of her culture and the realities of war. The youngest in a close-knit Buddhist family, Le Ly Hayslip was 12 years old when U.S. helicopters landed in her village. She was raped and "ruined" for marriage by Viet Cong soldiers, imprisoned and tortured by the South Vietnamese, and sentenced to death by the Viet Cong. Ultimately fleeing to the U.S. with her children, she finally found peace, and in 1986, she was reunited with her family in Vietnam. The story of her homecoming, interwoven with her memories of the war years, paints a vivid picture of a noble, optimistic woman and her native country.
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Difficult to listen to
- By heatherhg on 07-01-07
By: Le Ly Hayslip, and others
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In the First Circle
- By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Harry T. Willets - translator
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 31 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Moscow, Christmas Eve, 1949. The Soviet secret police intercept a call made to the American embassy by a Russian diplomat who promises to deliver secrets about the nascent Soviet Atomic Bomb program. On that same day, a brilliant mathematician is locked away inside a Moscow prison that houses the country's brightest minds. He and his fellow prisoners are charged with using their abilities to sleuth out the caller's identity, and they must choose whether to aid Joseph Stalin's repressive state - or refuse and accept transfer to the Siberian Gulag camps, and almost certain death.
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One of the five finest novels written in the 20th Century
- By Ellis D Vener on 04-08-19
By: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and others
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The Centurions
- By: Jean Larteguy, Robert D. Kaplan - foreward
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the chilling moral question the novel posed: how to fight when the "age of heroics is over". As relevant today as it was half a century ago, The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency.
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Superbly read. Unbelievably timely
- By Benjamin on 05-05-21
By: Jean Larteguy, and others
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The Quiet American
- By: Graham Greene
- Narrated by: Joseph Porter
- Length: 6 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Alden Pyle, an idealistic young American, is sent to Vietnam to promote democracy amidst the intrigue and violence of the French war with the Vietminh, while his friend, Fowler, a cynical foreign correspondent, looks on.
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Terrible narrator nearly derails Greene novel.
- By Richard on 07-12-12
By: Graham Greene
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Sapphire Skies
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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2000: The wreckage of a downed WWII fighter plane is discovered in the forests near Russia's Ukrainian border.The aircraft belonged to Natalya Azarova, ace pilot and pin-up girl for Soviet propaganda, but the question of her fate remains unanswered. Was she a German spy who faked her own death, as the Kremlin claims? Her lover, Valentin Orlov, now a highly-decorated general, refuses to believe it. Lily, a young Australian woman, has moved to Moscow to escape from tragedy.
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A Disturbing Disappointment
- By Sara on 08-07-14
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Shame
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam
- Length: 11 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The novel that set the stage for his modern classic, The Satanic Verses, Shame is Salman Rushdie's phantasmagoric epic of an unnamed country that is "not quite Pakistan". In this dazzling tale of an ongoing duel between the families of two men - one a celebrated wager of war, the other a debauched lover of pleasure - Rushdie brilliantly portrays a world caught between honor and humiliation.
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Should have quit at chapter 2
- By G. Miller on 06-23-23
By: Salman Rushdie
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In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
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Golden Earrings
- By: Belinda Alexandra
- Narrated by: Caroline Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Catalina, grand-daughter of Spanish refugees, is a disciplined student with the School of the Paris Opera Ballet. Little gets inthe way of her career until the visit of an otherworldly being, who leaves her a mysterious pair of golden earrings. Given a quest, Catalina realises she must explore her own Spanish heritage and makes the connection between the visitor and ‘La Rusa’, a young Andalusian flamenco star. La Rusa died in exile in Paris in 1952, her death ruled as suicide. But as Catalina begins to discover, there were those in the community, who had good reason for wanting La Rusa dead.
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Fabulous story
- By Paddington on 10-19-12
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The Kindly Ones
- By: Jonathan Littell
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 39 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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The chilling fictional memoir of Dr. Maximilien Aue, a former Nazi officer who has reinvented himself, many years after the war, as a middle-class family man and factory owner in France. Max is an intellectual steeped in philosophy, literature, and classical music. He is also a cold-blooded assassin and the consummate bureaucrat. Through the eyes of this cultivated yet monstrous man, we experience in disturbingly precise detail the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi genocide of the Jews.
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Office politics in hell
- By Maine Colonial 🌲 on 04-02-13
By: Jonathan Littell
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The most compelling listen I've ever owned
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My dead former enemy was speaking to me!
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his acclaimed novel about North Korea, The Orphan Master’s Son, Adam Johnson is one of America’s most provocative and powerful authors. Critics have compared him to Kurt Vonnegut, David Mitchell, and George Saunders, but Johnson’s new book will only further his reputation as one of our most original writers. Subtly surreal, darkly comic, both hilarious and heartbreaking, Fortune Smiles is a major collection of stories that gives voice to the perspectives we don’t often hear, while offering something rare in fiction: a new way of looking at the world.
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What listeners say about The Sympathizer
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Will
- 11-12-15
Graphic violence you can feel
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
I would not recommend this book and would not listen to or read it again. That said, the vocabulary and drawn comparisons were both brilliant. It was however overshadowed by too much violence which I did not feel comfortable with.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
Learning a side to the Viet Nam war I was unfamiliar with.... least was the heavy dose of descriptive VIOLENCE
Would you listen to another book narrated by Francois Chau?
yes
If this book were a movie would you go see it?
no
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38 people found this helpful
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- Sharlotte
- 08-27-17
Well-written book
I appreciate the author's intelligence, which was strikingly evident. While the book was very interesting, I must admit my attention waned somewhat by the second half, perhaps owing to the narration being so predictable.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mary Storms
- 05-18-19
Beautifully, smartly written and read
The Sympathizer is one of the most beautifully written, sonorously read books in my library. It is filled with the pathos and misery of war's leftover people - in this case, the Vietnamese from both sides of the fight. The Sympathizer is a story of philosophy, of life-sacrificing friendships, of the complexity of human beings, and of complicated decisions, relationships, and sacrifices. It deserves all its awards and accolades.
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1 person found this helpful
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- JAS
- 06-30-19
Cutting, complex and poetic story, delivered wryly
The Sympathizer challenges the reader (and listener) with its breadth of story and circuitous narrative. For the most party, I enjoyed listening to it unfold. It took rather a long time for me to embrace the narration, if truth be told. Extraneous mouth noises, for example, pull me out of it. And the extremely detached and wry delivery of Francois Chau, to my ears, affects more of a real person, at times, than a narrator. It's a tricky balance. Ultimately, Mr Chau's reading does work for me even when his instrument sometimes sounds like it needs a drink of water.
The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer, so who am I to quibble with the book? I definitely enjoyed visiting a time (mid 1970s, Vietnam and beyond) with a complex and intriguing main character. The book casually features some drop-dead gorgeous language. Immense beauty. Occasionally, the content gets pretty rough - but it never feels gratuitous. Way too many pop culture references for its own good, but otherwise, a compelling read - if, at times, confusing. I suggest not to worry about the confusion, and stay with it.
Mr Chau's narration provides a well-matched tone of humor and pathos. While less convincing with some of the additional character voices, the bulk of his work here provides a flexible and sturdy spine to the audiobook.
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1 person found this helpful
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- brenda gilbert
- 12-11-20
A Grim Confession
A grim but important story told with self-effacing transparency, liberally salted with figurative expression. A confession from the perspective of a revolutionary who has grown to understand the irony of his cause.
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- Sisyphus
- 12-11-20
A fascinating historical epic
“The Sympathizer“ is the fascinating story of an individual trying to survive with a little integrity as he threads his way through the messy, conflicting historical, social and Ideological constructs that framed our 20th century realities. It was an epic journey and well told!
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- MMMarshall
- 07-21-18
Best book of the Millennium
The writing would humble Nabokov, and Conrad could not have woven a better tale about the Double. An absolutely impeccable performance seers it into memory.
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- Reader in Iowa
- 08-26-16
Stunning
Set in divided Vietnam and the US, this book feels dystopian, but is all too history-based. Trigger warnings for violence, sexual and otherwise, but the violence shines a spotlight on the idea of violence, just as the entire book shines a spotlight on how sympathy cannot make suffering less.
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- PDQ925
- 03-04-17
I loved this book. Literature at its finest.
What did you love best about The Sympathizer?
Wit, pace, metaphors, humor, insight, historical view, philosophical tidbits, perspective, so much so that I became completely immersed in the protagonist's epic journeys.
What did you like best about this story?
The storyline follows a compelling track wrapped in brilliantly-crafted language and detail. I could hardly put down my iPod or wait to pick it up again.
Have you listened to any of Francois Chau’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I found the performance perfectly balanced to the tone and flow of the story.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
I was tugged in my emotions more by the humor and irony than anger or sadness. Like many Americans who did not serve but came of age in that era, Vietnam is the war we tend to jump over to reach back to the glory days of WW2. Although fictional, The Sympathizer is a well-needed perspective to help us come to grips with what it means to be the winner and loser in war, as much as what it means to be a refugee and immigrant in America. I had just read (listened to) All the Light We Cannot See which inspired me to read the Pulitzer Price winner for 2016 and I was not disappointed. Outstanding piece of literature. Bravo.
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- Bear's Mom
- 02-02-18
Thought-provoking
I love books that give a better understanding of history or a culture, and this novel does both with beautiful prose and heart-aching scenes.
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