The Boat is an interactive graphic novel based on the acclaimed story by Nam Le. The online project is the first interactive graphic novel by the Walkley-winning SBS interactive team, and unites hand drawn artwork, animation, text, sound, and archive to explore this important moment in history through an innovative mode of storytelling that pushes the existing boundaries of the graphic novel form.
The Boat tells the story of sixteen-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 Australia-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.
The project was launched in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and forty years of Vietnamese resettlement in Australia. It aspires to further representation of refugee voices in an innovative digital storytelling medium with particular pertinence to contemporary Australian asylum seeker issues. Watch an interview with Matt about the project’s creation here.
***
