Viet Thanh Nguyen

With smoke-and-mirrors panache, The Committed -- Viet Thanh Nguyen's sequel to The Sympathizer -- continues the travails of our Eurasian Ulysses, now relocated to France and self-identified as Vo Danh (which literally means "Nameless"). Having survived a communist reeducation camp, a perilous sea crossing, and a long sojourn in an Indonesian refugee center, he arrives in Paris on July 18, 1981 — the birthday of Nelson Mandela — to become, once again, a refugee.