The Committed : Viet Thanh Nguyen writes unreliable narrators because he is one, too japantimes.co.jp - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from japantimes.co.jp Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
In one of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s earliest memories, he is on a boat leaving Saigon.
It was 1975, and he and his family had been turned away from the airport and the American embassy but eventually got on a barge, then a ship. He can’t remember anything about the escape, other than soldiers on their ship firing at refugees who were approaching in a smaller boat.
It is Nguyen’s only childhood memory from Vietnam, and he isn’t sure if it really happened or if it came from something he read in a history book. To him, whether he personally witnessed the shooting doesn’t matter.