Thi Bui, The Best We Could Do
Book in Common
2022-23 Book in Common:
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About the Author
Thi Bui, the 2022-23 Book in Common author, is a Vietnamese American cartoonist whose work seeks to make sense of the stories that history leaves behind.
Thi’s debut graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, is the story of her family in the years before, during, and after the Vietnam War. It was selected for an American Book Award, a Common Book for UCLA and other colleges and universities, a National Book Critics Circle finalist, and was an Eisner Award finalist. Her memoir was included in Bill Gates’ Top 5 Books of 2017, and was called, “A book to break your heart and heal it,” by Pulitzer Prize-winner Viet Thanh Nguyen.
A veteran illustrator, Thi’s short comics can be found online at The Nib, PEN America, and BOOM California. She is a contributor to Refugees Anthology, published by Abrams Press, and illustrated A Different Pond, a 2018 Caldecott Honor Book, with writer Bao Phi. With her son, Hien, she co-illustrated the children’s book, Chicken of the Sea written by Viet Thanh Nguyen and his son, Ellison.
Thi is currently researching and drawing a work of graphic nonfiction about immigrant detention and deportation, to be published by One World, Random House.
We acknowledge and are mindful that Chico State stands on lands that were originally occupied by the first people of this area, the Mechoopda, and we recognize their distinctive spiritual relationship with this land, the flora, the fauna, and the waters that run through campus. We are humbled that our campus resides upon sacred lands that since time immemorial have sustained the Mechoopda people and continue to do so today.