Author Talk: Kevin Nguyen on His New Novel 'Mỹ Documents'

Presented in partnership with AAPI Westport, The Westport Library celebrated AAPI month with author Kevin Nguyen and his new book, 'Mỹ Documents,' in this conversation between Nguyen and educator and AAPI activist Jennifer Heikkila Diaz.

As an author, journalist, and editor at The Verge, Nguyen’s work often explores what happens at the intersection of technology, humanity, and culture. His incisive and darkly satirical new novel, ‘Mỹ Documents’, couldn’t be timelier — or more engrossing.

A moving speculative novel about a Vietnamese American family confronting ambition and assimilation during exceptionally troubled times, ‘Mỹ Documents’ gives a version of reality only a few degrees away from our own. Nguyen, whose work grew from extensive research on the incarceration of Japanese citizens in the U.S. during the 1940s, imagines what a mass detention program might look like in the age of the internet.

‘Mỹ Documents’ offers a striking commentary on the profound personal impact of political upheaval and tangles with the ethics of journalism and the uncomfortable boundaries of representation and solidarity within a community. Ultimately, this is a story of resilience and how we return to each other — and to ourselves — after tragedy. Nguyen deftly channels the uncanny worlds and emotional heft of some of other haunting contemporary novelists — Kazuo Ishiguro, Emily St. John Mandel, Ling Ma — while writing with alluring humor distinctly his own. (The title itself is a sly joke, with Mỹ being the Vietnamese word for “America.”)

Learn more here: https://westportlibrary.org/event/aut...

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Recorded May 20, 2025, published May 21, 2025, via Verso Studios at The Westport Library. 
 
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