We would all love to pretend that we’re above the euphoric rush of gaining approval. But winning feels good, and writing that truth in its fullness is a key step to understanding it. For the Guardian, Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his novel The Sympathizer and describes the fascinating sensation of learning that he had won the Pulitzer Prize:
I was writing emails when Facebook and Twitter began beeping and pinging, telling me that Something Very Important had happened. While I had known a degree of pleasure at winning prizes before, I had never been overtaken by this kind of physical sensation: trembling, accelerated heartbeat, disbelief – all due to a sense that my life was altered.
