Purchase College-SUNY Professor Usha Rungoo and highly acclaimed author Viet Thanh Nguyen will be in conversation Tuesday, Sept. 28, from 6 to 7 p.m. on the college campus in Purchase to launch the fall season of the Durst Distinguished Lecture Series. This cultural offering featuring the literary world”™s leading lights is free and open to the public digitally via Zoom.
Nguyen is the author of two novels: “The Sympathizer,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and “The Committed.” He has received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim and MacArthur Foundations, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the American Council of Learned Societies, among others.
“Nguyen”™s literary masterpieces manage what few other books do. They walk the fine line between aesthetic and narrative elegance on the one hand and political advocacy and social justice on the other, because for Nguyen, both are political acts,” said Rungoo, assistant professor of French and Literature at Purchase College.
Anthony Domestico, Purchase College associate professor of literature and chair of the literature department, said, “”¦His writing helps us to better understand where we have been and where we are going.”
The purpose of the Durst programs is to infuse the experience and intellect of leading writers into the Purchase community, while providing diverse opportunities for these writers to interact with students and influence campus life.
To register for the Viet Thanh Nguyen event, visit: https://purchase.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEpc-mgrTssHtBLvxAGeabr47f4Bubnnc-a.
