Park Chan-wook's Pulitzer Prize-winning Work 'Dongjoja' Adapted into Drama

Original Author Nguyen "Happy Director Park Chan-wook Took the Megaphone"

Director Park Chan-wook is adapting the 2016 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Sympathizer into a drama.

Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Vietnamese-American author of the novel, wrote on Twitter on the 7th, "I am delighted that director Park Chan-wook, who directed films such as The Handmaiden and Oldboy, is taking the helm of the drama The Sympathizer." According to him, the two have been in contact since October 2019, discussing the drama adaptation. Nguyen previously revealed that he was inspired by Oldboy when writing The Sympathizer.

The production will be handled by A24, which distributed films such as Minari, Room, Lady Bird, The Lobster, and The Florida Project in North America. Nguyen is scheduled to appear soon on an A24 podcast with director Lee Isaac Chung of Minari to share anecdotes about working with director Park.

The Sympathizer is Nguyen’s debut novel that examines the hidden sides of Vietnamese and American societies immediately after the Vietnam War through the eyes of a double agent. With sharp and satirical prose and skillful use of experimental literary devices, it won nine major American literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the Andrew Carnegie Medal, and the PEN/Faulkner Award. In South Korea, it was published by Minumsa in June 2018.