Thi Bui :: Jenna Lê

Thi Bui's dynamite graphic memoir The Best We Could Do skyrocketed onto my all-time favorites list instantly: it's an intimate family story strung out on the pitiless frame of history, the way the membranous part of a dreamcatcher is stretched across its hard outer frame, such that every reader is drawn in -- implicated -- caught. Bui's visual art, not only in The Best We Could Do but also in her award-winning illustrations for the children's book A Different Pond (by poet and author Bao Phi), has a heartstrings-tugging watercolor-like tenderness: it's amazing to find an author so equally gifted with words and pictures. Many of us children of refugees have heard our parents tell stories bearing similarities to the tales Bui tells, but it takes talent to make the scenes spring to life the way she does, often with just a single thoughtfully chosen visual detail or scrap of dialogue. 

                                                       ~ Jenna Lê