From the DCPL website:
Eisner and Lambda Award nominated cartoonist Trung Le Nguyen, author of The Magic Fish at MLK Public Library in DC. At a time when graphic novels, especially those written by LGBTQ authors and writers of color, are being targeted by book bans, we are thrilled to host Nguyen to celebrate his work telling stories from the API and LGBTQ communities. In conversation with former Ambassador to Vietnam Ted Osius, Nguyen discussed his writing and art and the importance of representation in storytelling.
This was a really interesting interview by Ambassador Osius who admitted to no prior knowledge of graphic novels, and who was our first gay ambassador to Vietnam. All my quotes are approximate paraphrases, and you should watch the YouTube video.
"Why
is my book banned? They put it on Middle School lists although it was
sold a young adults book. Then they focus on the queer content. And they
ignore the cannibalism."
"My
father was a prizefighter and my mother grew up in a rough area so she
learned to defend herself. Mr Father was impressed at how she could
break a man's jaw when her foot. They got married,
became
boat people and escaped from Vietnam. They were practical people so
they didn't worry about what the Church thought when I accidentally came
out to them."
"The
reason I set the Cinderella story in 1950s Hong Kong movie style, was
because I don't have an inkling, even in my own imagination, as to what
Vietnam looked like hundreds of years ago. I was born in the Philippines and raised in Minnesota. So I had a conversation with my grandmother about what her youth looked like."
