Girl, Illustrated. Thi Bui, artist behind 2019 UCSB Reads Pick, comes to campus.
What Thi Bui first set out to do was to turn a graduate school oral history project into something more accessible outside academia. Safe to say: she succeeded wildly.
That oral history became the basis for “The Best We Could Do,” Bui’s illustrated memoir documenting her family’s escape from Vietnam in the 1970s and the difficulties they faced building new lives in America. It received widespread critical and popular acclaim, winning a 2018 American Book Award, named a finalist for 2017 National Book Critics Circle and Eisner awards and landing on a host of “Best Of” lists.