“TOP 10 GRAPHIC MEMOIRS OF ALL TIME”TIME ENTERTAINMENT

PUBLISHER ⋮ Penguin Random House
ROLE ⋮ Author Illustrator Book Designer
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.


GOLD MEDAL IN SEQUENTIAL ARTSOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS

GREGORY M. NONFICTION LITERATURE FELLOWSHIPNEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS

BEST REALITY BASED WORK NOMINEEEISNER AWARDS

CIVITELLA RANIERI ARTIST FELLOWSHIPCIVITELLA RANIERI FOUNDATION
BOOK TRAILER BY JOE TOMCHO


 
“BEYOND STORYTELLING, TRAN IS AN ARTIST TRULY GIFTED IN HIS MEDIUM.”
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

ARTWORK STAGES




Included in Washington DC’s PLANET WORD’s
permanent interactive book exhibit


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!


FULLY ILLUSTRATED 288 PAGES


ORDER VIETNAMERICA


My publisher

My local independent book store

French edition

Spanish edition

ACADEMIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

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