“TOP 10 GRAPHIC MEMOIRS OF ALL TIME”TIME ENTERTAINMENT
PUBLISHER ⋮ Penguin Random House
ROLE ⋮ Author
VIETNAMERICA is the story of my family’s physical and emotional survival through Vietnam’s wars, and immigration to the United States. This history was uncovered through years of family interviews, research and travels as I grew from being clueless about my parents’ past to realizing that to better understand myself, I needed to first better understand them. The story weaves two timelines–my parents’ life in Vietnam and mine in the US–to reveal the intricate web of tragedy, trauma, and triumph that have shaped our family. It’s me writing my future by drawing my past, and preserving my family’s journey for my kids just in case some day they ask where they’re from.
GREGORY M. NONFICTION LITERATURE FELLOWSHIPNEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS
BEST REALITY BASED WORK NOMINEEEISNER AWARDS
CIVITELLA RANIERI ARTIST FELLOWSHIPCIVITELLA RANIERI FOUNDATION
Washington Post
“A KICK-IN-THE-GUT GRAPHIC NOVEL... ENGAGING, CHALLENGING, AND DISTURBING, TRAN’S FAMILY MEMOIR BELONGS IN ALL PUBLIC AND ACADEMIC LIBRARIES.”
Library Journal Starred Review
“IN TRAN’S MEMOIR, THEME, NARRATIVE, AND ART WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE A DEEPLY COMPELLING GRAPHIC NOVEL... HIS ARTWORK–RICHLY DETAILED BUT NEVER OVERCROWDED–REALISTIC WHILE ALLOWING FOR ABSTRACTION, AND EXPERTLY COMPOSED–WRINGS MEANING OUT OF THE SMALLEST DETAIL.”
School Library Journal
“A DAZZLING COMIC BOOK ACCOUNT OF A FAMILY SHATTERED BY THE VIETNAM WAR, THEIR STRUGGLES IN THE UNITED STATES, AND THE DIFFICULT RETURN TO VIETNAM. VISUALLY STUNNING.”
Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author
“VIETNAMERICA IS AN UTTERLY REMARKABLE PIECE OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. IF YOU HAVE EVER FELT A CONNECTION TO THE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE, IF YOU ARE BORN OF A GENERATION THAT BENIFITTED FROM THE BRUISES AND BLOOD OF THE ONE THAT CAME BEFORE, THEN THIS MEMORI WILL RESONATE AS LITERATURE RARELY DOES.”
Racebending
Included in Washington DC’s PLANET WORD’s
Each novel in this 49 book collection has custom animation and narration activated when the reader opens the book.
Explore VIETNAMERICA with Curator of Programming, Rebecca Roberts!
My publisher
My local independent book store
French edition
Spanish edition
American Migrant Fictions: Space, Narrative, Identity
Sonia Weiner
Brill, 2018, p. 71-115
Asian American Graphic Narrative
M. Chiu and J. Roan Oxford
Research Encyclopedia of Literature, 2018
A View from the Vietnamese Diaspora: Memories of Warfare and Refuge in GB Tran’s Vietnamerica
Alaina Kaus
Mosaic, 2016 Volume 49 Issue 4, p. 1-19
Bleeds and the Sites of Trauma in GB Tran’s Vietnamerica
Jin Lee
The Comic Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 2017
Disorienting the Vietnam War: GB Tran’s Vietnamerica As Transnational and Transhistorical Graphic Memoir
Caroline Hong
Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies, 2014, p. 11-22
Environmental Graphic Memory: Remembering the Natural World and Revising History in Vietnamerica
Jeffrey Santa Ana
Redrawing the Historical Past, 2018, p. 157-181
Illustrating Diaspora: History and Memory in Vietnamese American and French Graphic Novels
Catherine Nguyen
Redrawing the Historical Past, 2018, p. 182-216
Layering History: Graphic Embodiment and Emotions in GB Tran’s Vietnamerica
Rocio Davis
Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, 2015 Volume 19 Issue 2, p. 252-267
Mapping Memory in Tran’s Vietnamerica
Mary Goodwin
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, 2015 Volume 17 Issue 3
Picturing the Past: Drawing Together Vietnamese American Transnational History
Timothy K. August
Eds. Global Asian American Popular Cultures, NYU Press, 2016
The Refugee Repertoire: Performing and Staging the Postmemories of Violence
Long Bui
MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the U.S. 41.3, Fall 2016, p. 112-132
Remembering in Red and Yellow: History, Memory, and Second-Generation Vietnamese American Identity in GB Tran’s Vietnamerica
Jade Hidle
International Journal of Comic Art 15.1, Spring 2013, p. 408-418
Traumatic Analepsis and Ligne Claire in GB Tran’s Vietnamerica
Harriet Earle
The Comic Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship, 2014
Uprooting Genealogy in GB Tran’s Vietnamerica
Maureen Shay
Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2016 Volume 52 Issue 4, p. 428-444
The West and the Asian American Experience
Marguerite Nguyen
Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 184-198