--- description: Find out why "The Committed" by Viet Thanh Nguyen is on TIME's list of the must-read books from this year. title: 'The Committed' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2021 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf80a50f1a988cbe7/6998cd3be1ba008edc98e4bd/time-hi-res.webp?branch=production&width=640&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Nov 29, 2021 # The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 novel _The Sympathizer_ won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction; this highly anticipated sequel exceeds expectations. The story picks up in early 1980s Paris, where our unnamed French-Vietnamese double agent has arrived with his brother, both hoping to leave behind their traumatic experiences in re-education camps. What this means is assimilating to Parisian life, and opening up to a world run by their people’s colonizers. The narrator approaches these tensions with ambivalence and, at times, cynicism—he finds stimulating community among French intellectuals but he’s very aware of the racism they’re certain they lack—and eventually turns to drug dealing to make a living. _The Committed_ is a thrilling and thought-provoking examination of contradicting identities and ethical ambiguity. **Buy Now:** _The Committed_on [Bookshop](https://bookshop.org/a/4973/9780802157065 "undefined") | [Amazon](https://amzn.to/3oyYGpc "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-must-read-books-2021/6120659/the-committed/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-must-read-books-2021/6120659/the-committed/"},"headline":"The Committed","datePublished":"2021-11-29T13:15:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-02T23:58:24.339Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-must-read-books-2021/6120659/the-committed/","keywords":["Books","list","best books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf80a50f1a988cbe7/6998cd3be1ba008edc98e4bd/time-hi-res.webp?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf80a50f1a988cbe7/6998cd3be1ba008edc98e4bd/time-hi-res.webp?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-must-read-books-2021/6120659/the-committed/","name":"The Committed"}}]}] ```