The Theory of Water with LEANNE BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON

The Theory of Water with LEANNE BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON

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World-Making, Life-Giving & Indigenous Internationalism with LEANNE BETASAMOSAKE SIMPSON

So I think that part of colonialism for Indigenous peoples has been this idea that Indigenous peoples aren't thinking peoples and that we don't have thought on a kind of systemic level. One of the things that I was interested in doing is intervening in that because I think Indigenous people have a lot of beautiful, very intellectual, theoretical contributions to make to the world. A lot of our theory is encoded in story, but a lot of our theory is also encoded in land-based practice. You can't learn about it from reading books or from going to lectures. You have to really be out on the land with elders for long periods of time. 

On Writing, America's Forever Wars & Challenging Power with Author VIET THANH NGUYEN

On Writing, America's Forever Wars & Challenging Power with Author VIET THANH NGUYEN

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A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning Author VIET THANH NGUYEN

What I've discovered as a writer is that fear is a good indicator that there is a truth. To speak the truth in a society is oftentimes an act that requires some courage. Those processes of being an other for me in the United States were obviously very fundamental to shaping who I am as a person and as a writer. It was very difficult to undergo, but to become a writer who could talk about those issues was also a lot of fun. Writing The Sympathizer was a lot of fun, and I hope that the novel was enjoyable and humorous to read as well, despite its very serious politics. When I wrote The Committed, I also had a lot of fun as an outsider to France. In writing the novel itself, The Committed, there was a lot of humor, satire, and these kinds of tools to confront the tragedy of othering. This is very important to me as literary and political devices. I think I could do that in both The Sympathizer and The Committed because I had a lot of distance from the time periods that those novels described. My challenge right now is to try to find my sense of humor in describing what the United States is undergoing and doing to other countries, its own immigrants, and its own people of color, and minorities in the present. That's proving to be a little more challenging at this moment.