This immersive presentation of the visual graphic novel, The Boat by Nam Le, tells the story of 16-year-old Mai, whose parents make the decision to send her alone on a boat after the fall of Saigon. The epic and tragic story resonates with the foundational narrative of the Australian-Vietnamese diaspora including that of author Nam Le’s own family. Similarly, New York based Australian illustrator Matt Huynh’s parents left Vietnam for Australia in the years following the fall of Saigon.
Matt Huynh said: “The Boat is the most urgent and immediate comic I've ever made - a work of a kind I've never quite seen before and a unique chance to engage an issue so entangled with my own life. It's a work that deals not in metaphor
or analogy, not exclusively fiction or history and impossible to segment artist from subject. This resulting work is proof of my life, luck, of a country's compassion for people in the most vulnerable of circumstances over 40 years ago and our urgent, unavoidable connection to today's asylum seekers and refugees.”
Click here to view The Boat online.
CREDITS
"The Boat"
An interactive graphic novel of the acclaimed short story by Nam Le
Adapted and illustrated - Matt Huynh
Commissioned and Produced - Kylie Boltin
Interaction developer and animator – Matt Smith
Sound designer - Sam Petty (Animal Kingdom, The Rover)
Developed and Produced by SBS Australia