Date:
Location:
THE NORTON LECTURES
Speaker: Viet Thanh Nguyen
Interlocutor: Laila Lalami
Norton Lecture Two: On Speaking as an Other
Timed to coincide with the release of Nguyen’s book, A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial, this lecture highlights some of the book’s themes and problems, especially concerning writing memoir as both an individual and a collective story, the perils of betrayal, and the difference between private secrets and open secrets.
A limited number of signed copies of A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial will be available for purchase at the venue starting at 5:00pm. Other books by Viet Thanh Nguyen will also be available for purchase at this time. The book sale is hosted by the Harvard Book Store.
"On Speaking as an Other" is the second of six Norton Lectures with Viet Thanh Nguyen. For all Lecture dates and information, click here. Recordings of Viet's Norton Lectures are available to watch on our YouTube channel.
Norton Lectures are free and open to the public, but tickets are required. Tickets will be available starting at noon on the day of the lecture online through the Harvard Box Office (handling fees apply) or in person at Sanders Theatre. Limit of four tickets per person. Tickets valid until 5:45pm.
Free parking is available at the Broadway Garage, located at 7 Felton Street, between Broadway and Cambridge Streets.
About the Speakers
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and numerous other awards. His most recent publication is A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial. His other books are the sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed; a short story collection, The Refugees; Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction); and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America. He has also published Chicken of the Sea, a children’s book written in collaboration with his son, Ellison. He is a University Professor at the University of Southern California. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, he is also the editor of The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives.
Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of five books, including The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It was on the longlist for the Booker Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her most recent novel, The Other Americans, was a national bestseller, won the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, Harper’s, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She has been awarded fellowships from the British Council, the Fulbright Program, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. She is currently Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California at Riverside.
Introduction By:
Glenda Carpio, Chair of the Department of English, Harvard College Professor, and Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature at Harvard University.
About the Norton Lectures
The Charles Eliot Norton Professorship in Poetry was endowed in 1925. Harvard’s preeminent lecture series in the arts and humanities, the Norton Lectures recognize individuals of extraordinary talent who, in addition to their particular expertise, have the gift of wide dissemination and wise expression. The term “poetry” is interpreted in the broadest sense to encompass all poetic expression in language, music, or the fine arts.