Catfish and Mandala

Given there is a a lot of talk about people smuggling into Australia again then I think Catfish and Mandala is a good book for me to be reading. Andrew Pham gets you in from the first word and weaves the tale of his journey to America and then back to Vietnam with a modest but disarmingly honest approach. He just tells the story of what it is like to be a Vietnamese born American and then a Viet-kieu in Vietnam. You hear the tales of what it was like trying to escape from Vietnam and then what it is like to return when you have been living in America. As the story unfolds you get more and more information which arises naturally from the bicycle trip around Vietnam. It is not sensational but he simplicity of it is paradoxical. and deeply moving. It is the simplicity which keeps you reading. He has such a way with words and he embellishes nothing...but then nothing needs to be embellished. It is fascinating and it has given me a much better understanding of what might be the reality for some of our refugees here....and has made me think about how awful it is that people try to make money out of their misfortune. I have just lost myself in it everytime I have picked it up and it is easy to see why this is a prize winning book. There are e-copies available here.