Thi Bui
Thi Bui is an award-winning author, designer, and illustrator, who specializes in works of graphic nonfiction and memoir. Bui's writing focuses on family, belonging, and identity, as explored from her personal perspective as a first-generation immigrant from Vietnam.
Born in Vietnam in 1973, Bui eventually immigrated with her family to the United States during the Vietnam war in the late 70s. This major transition in her life serves as a foundation for many of the themes and motifs of her work. Since childhood she has been inspired to write and illustrate stories, and studied fine arts in college.
Bui's career in illustration and storytelling began when she realized that she could marry her two passions – art and writing – into one practice. During her time as a graphic design graduate student, she created a mascot character that she believed appealed to both children and adults. The characters and their stories provided her with the beginning materials for her creative vision.
Bui's debut book, The Best We Could Do, was published in 2017 to critical acclaim. The illustrated book is a lamentation of her family's history, detailing their tumultuously journey from communal life in rural Vietnam to communist struggles in an ever-changing country to fleeing war-torn Vietnam for hopeful lives in America. In the book, Bui explores the collective pain of exile and dispossession. Through first-hand accounts and details of her familial narrative, Bui reflects on her experience as an immigrant in the United States.
Her work has earned numerous awards and accolades, including an Eisner Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kirkus Prize, California Book Awards, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.
Bui's second book, A Different Pond, was published in 2018. The book is a heartwarming story told by her father and is a tribute to overlooked individuals and cultures. It follows a young Vietnamese boy and his father fishing early one morning on the shores of a Minneapolis pond. With poetic implications and a beautiful display of emotions, Bui illuminates themes of family, economic hardship, and gratefulness.
In 2019, Bui released her third book, "Someone Huh?", which follows the experiences of ten year-old Ruby, a Vietnamese American girl navigating life in her new neighborhood. The book combines colorful illustration and detailed dialogue to explore the intersection between cultures and family, as Ruby learns to accept herself and the world around her.
In addition to her work as an author, illustrator, and designer, Thi Bui is also a professor and lecturer in design, storytelling, and art. She has given talks, interviews, and presentations all around the world, from Korea to Egypt to the United Kingdom and beyond. Her capacities have earned her awards such as the Lynda.com and Gestalt Award for Service to the Visual Arts Community.
Thi Bui is an acclaimed and prolific creator of graphic nonfiction and memoir. By drawing from personal experience, exploring themes of belonging and identity, and offering beautiful, poetic illustrations, she has gained a well-deserved recognition and distinguished herself within the creative world.
