Anh Do's Book 'The Happiest Refugee'

Anh Do Had A Strange Life

Anh Do’s book ‘The Happiest Refugee’ is made up of a prologue and twelve chapters that tell a tale of Anh and his family until 2010 which is when the book was published. Anh has come a long way from the day his mother tried like crazy to stop two year old him crying as the family secretly escapes Vietnam.

While Anh is on the boat to Australia many pirates make two berserk attacks, which are amazing both in the courage the refugees show and in the cold-blooded cruelty of the pirates, ‘Suddenly guns were lifted and machetes raised. The robbery now turned into a full-blown standoff: nine men with weapons against thirty-seven starving refugees, a baby dangling over the ocean, and a naked woman awaiting hell.’ (p.g 23). He focuses greatly on telling the reader that as the pirates are leaving them for dead, one of the younger pirates throws a liter of water to the terrified people ‘That water saved our lives…that second pirate attack saved our lives’(p.g 24).

The chapters that follow suit portray the countless acts of kindness the family get from organizations like St Vincent de Paul, it also potrays the homes that Anh’s family move into that are in and around Sydney.

When in Sydney Anh’s parents secure a sewing business that involves working long hours in challenging circumstances for limited pay. The reader laughs with Anh as he relives his boyish adventures and feel the genuine love and admiration he possesses for his loving mother when he is able to buy her first house in

Australia.

During the entirety, the reader feels privileged to share Ahn's ideas and emotions, especially when he honestly writes about times in his life that must have been exceptionally difficult, like when his father reappears unannounced on p.g 94, ‘It's hard to describe how strange it feels when you cross that line. When you break through having a fear of your father and decide that you're ready and willing to hurt him. Fear and adrenaline mix like a bubbling poison that eventually explodes and you find yourself scarred and distorted, and you can never go back. You lose respect for him, for authority in general. Then all the things that he represents, all the principles, start to crumble and you ultimately lose respect for yourself.’ The way it is written, like many other autobiographies, is from the author's perspective.

Throughout the book Anh is open and honest, like when he describes his love for his drama lessons at school ‘For that brief double period of make-believe you got to float away on an intoxicating bubble of imagination.’ p.g 98. He also writes in an informal and conversational style, which relays a large sense of casual feel and feels as if he is talking to a old friend.

To conclude Anh Do wrote an energetic book filled with emotion that is so well written you feel as if you are experiencing them along with Anh. It is an interesting look on the lives and struggles of the Vietnamese.