Wiki Article

Kevin Nguyen

Nguồn dữ liệu từ Wikipedia, hiển thị bởi DefZone.Net

Kevin Nguyen
OccupationsAuthor, editor
Websiteknguyen.org

Kevin Nguyen is an American author and editor of Vietnamese descent. He is the author of New Waves and Mỹ Documents, as well as the Features Editor at The Verge.[1]

Career

[edit]

Early in his career, Nguyen at a startup called Oyster where Nguyen served as the Editorial Director and launched the Oyster Review.[2] After Oyster was acquired by Google, Nguyen worked as the Editorial Director of Google Play Books. He then became an editor at GQ and is now currently the Features Editor at The Verge.[3][4] His journalism work has been nominated as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award.[5]

Nguyen's writing has additionally appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, The New Republic, and other publications, as well as the horror anthology, Tiny Nightmares: Very Short Stories of Horror, published by Catapult in 2020.[6][7][8] He also formerly wrote a book column for Grantland.[9] He is currently at work on a biography of the Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.[10]

New Waves

[edit]

In 2020, Nguyen published his debut novel, New Waves, which follows the lives of Lucas, a young Asian American who works in customer service, and Margo, a Black software engineer, as they work at a startup and soon try to undermine it.[11] He had gradually written it in his Notes app, then a Google Doc, while taking the subway; at the time, he was working in tech.[12]

New Waves was named a best book of 2020 by Vanity Fair, GQ, NPR, the New York Public Library, and others.[13][14][15][16] Of the book, The New York Times compared Lucas and Margo to Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and concluded that "It’s exciting to see the workplace novel making a literary comeback."[17] The Observer lauded Nguyen's approach to grief and stated that "though death dominates the proceedings, New Waves itself is a novel that is very much alive."[18]

Mỹ Documents

[edit]

In May 2025, Nguyen released his second novel, Mỹ Documents, published by One World Books.[19] Based around the conceit of "what if Vietnamese people were detained in camps in an echo of Japanese incarceration," the book follows a Vietnamese family torn apart by an executive order calling for the incarceration of Vietnamese Americans after a string of terror attacks perpetrated by a few members of the community. He had begun writing it "on and off over five years" starting in 2018.[10]

Many publications called Mỹ Documents reflective of the contemporary political situation faced by immigrants in the United States. Time named it a best book of 2025.[20] The Los Angeles Times called it a "rich, gripping novel that lands squarely as a mirror of our contemporary moral squalor."[21] The New York Times lauded its ambition, its humor, and its revelatory power.[22] Tony Tulathimutte said it was one "you really hate to see in the company of words like timely, prescient, or prophetic" and remarked that "the only stark divergence from our reality in the world of Mỹ Documents is that its journalists seem a lot more principled, courageous, and effective than the ones currently standing by and shrugging as the breathing tube gets yanked out of democracy."[23]

With regard to the critical reception, Nguyen stated in Lithub that he never intended to write a "timely" novel, nor a "social justice fanfic" or work of "political art" in which narrative is flattened for the sake of a political argument. Overall, he expressed worries that the novel's "actual conflicts and themes had been obfuscated by the emphasis on the news cycle."[24]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Kevin Nguyen's 6 favorite books sure to make you laugh". The Week. 2022-08-08. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  2. ^ "Kevin Nguyen's debut novel examines race, power and privilege in tech". NBC News. 2020-03-10. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  3. ^ "5 Book Recs From 'New Waves' Author Kevin Nguyen". GQ. 2020-03-24. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  4. ^ McArdle, Molly (2015-09-30). "30 Under 30: Kevin Nguyen, Editorial Director of Google Play Books". BKMAG. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  5. ^ "Kevin Nguyen's New Novel Enters an Eerie Near-Future in 'an Attempt to Tell Truths That Elude Nonfiction' (Exclusive)". People.com. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  6. ^ "How Interviewing Your Own Family Can Change Your Life". 2025-04-29. Archived from the original on 2025-07-09. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  7. ^ "LINCOLN MICHEL, SAM J. MILLER, MONIQUE LABAN, ESHANI SURYA, and KEVIN NGUYEN with Carissa Chesanek | The Brooklyn Rail". brooklynrail.org. 2024-07-30. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  8. ^ "Eavesdropping on Ocean Vuong's New Book (Published 2019)". 2019-05-25. Archived from the original on 2025-09-02. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  9. ^ McArdle, Molly (2015-09-30). "30 Under 30: Kevin Nguyen, Editorial Director of Google Play Books". BKMAG. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  10. ^ a b Franzini, Sam (2025-04-29). "Author Spotlight: Kevin Nguyen, 'Mỹ Documents'". Our Culture. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  11. ^ "Kevin Nguyen's debut novel examines race, power and privilege in tech". NBC News. 2020-03-10. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  12. ^ Frishberg, Janet (2020-04-22). "Nothing Gets Solved: Talking with Kevin Nguyen". The Rumpus. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  13. ^ Fair, Vanity (2020-07-23). "21 Best Books of 2020: The Books Getting Us Through This Wild Year (So Far)". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  14. ^ Groundwater, Colin (2020-03-26). "The Most Unputdownable Books to Read Right Now". GQ. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  15. ^ "Books We Love". NPR. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  16. ^ "Best Books for Adults 2020". www.nypl.org. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  17. ^ "What if Gatsby Worked at a Tech Start-Up? (Published 2020)". 2020-03-10. Archived from the original on 2022-12-06. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  18. ^ Paez-Pumar, Luis (2020-03-10). "In Kevin Nguyen's 'New Waves,' a Techno-Heist Twists Into a Story of Life and Loss". Observer. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  19. ^ Wayne, Teddy (2025-04-08). "Lit Hub Asks: 5 Authors, 7 Questions, No Wrong Answers". Literary Hub. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  20. ^ "The 100 Must-Read Books of 2025". Time.
  21. ^ "Review: 'Mỹ Documents' hits a little too close to home — which is all the more reason to read it". Los Angeles Times. 2025-04-03. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  22. ^ Reyes, Jr., Ruben (2025-04-10). "Vietnamese Americans Are Swept Into Detention Camps in this Comic (Yes) Novel". The New York Times.
  23. ^ "In "Mỹ Documents" Silicon Valley Surveillance Is a Family Problem". Electric Literature. 2025-04-16. Retrieved 2025-12-12.
  24. ^ Nguyen, Kevin (2025-05-06). "I Take No Pleasure in Having Written an "Eerily Prescient" Novel". Literary Hub. Retrieved 2025-12-12.