The following announcement was made today by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel:
Scholar and writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner and associate professor of English and American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, has endorsed BDS and the cultural and academic boycott of Israel in support of Palestinian rights.
“Always remember, never forget. These powerful words compel us to think about both the injustices of the past and the injustices of the present. One of those contemporary injustices that we struggle to remember is the Israeli occupation and the deprivation of Palestinian rights. For any of us concerned with justice, the imperative is clear: we must stand with the disempowered and the forgotten against militarism and the state,” said Nguyen.
Nguyen joins two other Pulitzer Prize winners, Junot Diaz and Alice Walker, in endorsing the call of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
Nguyen is the author of Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America (Oxford University Press, 2002) and the novel The Sympathizer, from Grove/Atlantic (2015). The Sympathizer won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, an Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America, the First Novel Prize from the Center for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction from the American Library Association, a California Book Award, and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in Fiction from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association. It was also a finalist for thePEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. The novel made it to over thirty book-of-the-year lists, including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com, Slate.com
His latest book is Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War, which is the critical bookend to a creative project whose fictional bookend is The Sympathizer. Nothing Ever Dies examines how the so-called Vietnam War has been remembered by many countries and people, from the US to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and South Korea. Harvard University Press published it in March 2016. Kirkus Reviews calls the book “a powerful reflection on how we choose to remember and forget.”
> Viet Thanh Nguyen
Always remember, never forget.
… One of those contemporary injustices that we struggle to remember is the Israeli occupation and the deprivation of Palestinian rights. For any of us concerned with justice, the imperative is clear: we must stand with the dis-empowered and the forgotten against militarism and the state …”
That we struggle to remember –
the thousands of murdered Palestinian children,
THE INNOCENT VICTIMS WILL NOT (EVER) BE FORGOTTEN.
Bravo, Mr. Nguyen!
This is a beautiful book which I read for pleasure. It’s much easier to get through then the works of Edward Said, but it says the same things.
Most fair minded, knowledgeable, compassionate human beings, who have not been been influenced by the American media, and their version of hasbara, will come to this conclusion.
There are good reasons why credible leaders like Desmond Tutu, the Pope, and so many other writers, journalists, human rights groups, and so many others around the world, have condemned this occupation and are speaking for the victims of oppression, and massacres.
To side with the Occupier, aid it, protect it, means you are PRO OCCUPATION,
There is no justification valid enough to keep supporting this shameful crime.
Also:
http://www.usacbi.org/advisory-board/
U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Honorary Advisory Board Member, Desmond Mpilo Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town
Watch Desmond Tutu discussing the Israeli apartheid on Democracy Now!
Rabab Abdulhadi, San Francisco State University
Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Lawrence Davidson, Professor of History, West Chester University
Read Lawrence Davidson’s “Why The Academic Boycott Is Necessary”
Bill Fletcher, Jr., Executive Editor, The Black Commentator and immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum
Watch Bill Fletcher on Al Jazeera discussing the BDS campaign
Glen Ford, Executive Editor, Black Agenda Report
Read Glen Ford’s “Boycott and Disinvest in Israel, in Solidarity and Self-Defense”
Mark Gonzales, Educator, Poet, Human Writes Project
Marilyn Hacker, poet
Edward S. Herman, Professor Emeritus of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Annemarie Jacir, Filmmaker, Philistine Films
Read Annemarie Jacir on the Cultural Boycott of Israel
J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Associate Professor of American Studies and Anthropology, Wesleyan University
Read J.Kēhaulani Kauanui’s “Educators of Conscience Call for an Academic Boycott of Israel”
Robin D. G. Kelley, Professor of History, University of Southern California
Bill Mullen, Professor of American Studies, Purdue University
Ilan Pappé, Chair in the Department of History, the University of Exeter and co-director of the Exeter Center for Ethno-Political Studies.
Read Ilan Pappé’s “Just Academic”
James Petras, Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York
Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies, Trinity College
Jasbir Puar, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University
Read Jasbir Puar’s “Israel’s Gay Propaganda War”
Adrienne Rich, poet, essayist, activist (1929-2012)
Read Adrienne Rich’s “Why Support the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel?”
Andrew Ross, New York University
Michel Shehadeh, Executive Director, Arab Film Festival
Neferti Tadiar, Professor and Chair of Women’s Studies, Barnard College
Lisa Taraki, Associate Professor of Sociology, Birzeit University, Palestine and a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Read Lisa Taraki’s “Critics of the AAUP Report”
Cornel West, Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice, Union Theological Seminary
Dave Zirin, Writer, EdgeofSports