Sống is the first graphic novel by author Vietnamese Trần Hải Anh and French illustrator Pauline Guitton. Photo courtesy of Kim Đồng Publishing House

HÀ NỘI - Kim Đồng Publishing House has launched a new comic book entitled Sống (Live). 

The book is compiled by Vietnamese author Trần Hải Anh and French illustrator Pauline Guitton.

In Sống, a mother tells her daughter about her own teenage years spent in hiding amid the war in Việt Nam against the US. From 1969 to 1975, the mother, now a director, spent seven years with her father, a script writer, in the forests with Vietnamese revolutionary soldiers. Her father introduced her to the national resistance and to film. 

This tale of a Vietnamese woman in an untold part of history turns into a portrait of the complex relationship that Hải Anh has with her mother and her roots. 

"Sống is a word that pops into my head when my mother told me about her adventure in her teenage years," said Hải Anh at the book launching ceremony at Kim Đồng Publishing House on Tuesday. 

"I decided to summarise each memory with a Vietnamese verb that helped me to imbed the memory in my mind. 

"Therefore, when reading a family story punctuated with vocabulary from that family language, French readers will likely discover many other words of the beautiful language that is Vietnamese," said Hải Anh. 

Hải Anh is a young filmmaker, born and raised in France to a Vietnamese family. She spent more time with her father than with her famous mother, director Việt Linh, the woman behind many international-award winning Vietnamese movies, who was going back and forth to Việt Nam for work.

Hải Anh has a Master's degree in economics, culture and cinema. She won the Forbes magazine honour 'Outstanding Young Faces Under 30 Years Old in Asia' in 2023.

Speaking at the book launching ceremony, French Ambassador Olivier Brochet expressed his joy when the book was launched in Vietnamese.

"This is a story of intergenerational communication between a mother and daughter," said the ambassador. "It contributes to recreating the nation's history from a rarely mentioned perspective and expressing a young person's desire to learn about her roots."

From left to right: illustrator Pauline Guitton, author Trần Hải Anh and her mother Việt Linh at the book launching.

Sống is a comic book, a graphic novel. Hải Anh wrote it with her friend Pauline Guitton who graduated with a Master in Character Animation and Animated Filmmaking in 2021. She is now a storyboard artist, animator and illustrator. 

Sống is their first graphic novel. The book was first released in France in early 2023 with some 8,000 copies. It received support from the Publishing Support Fund for excellent works in French - La Scam. 

Early this year, Sống won the Prix du Jury oecuménique de la BD 2024 (The Prize of the Ecumenical Jury) in France. - VNS