Edited By Carina Hoang.
In 1979, in a wooden boat crowded with almost 400 people, Carina Hoang escaped Vietnam with two of her siblings. She is now a doctoral candidate at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia. On July 5, Hoang had a launch of Boat People: Personal Stories of the Vietnamese Exodus at the Library of New South Wales. By editing this book, she aims to put a human face on the 1.5 million people to flee Vietnam, between 1975 and 1996, by seeking refuge in neighboring countries. One-third died en route, at sea or in camps. 

Guest diaCRITIC blogger Boitran Huynh-Beattie—a professor, curator and art historian in Australia—reviews this new collection of stories edited by Vietnamese-American-Australian Carina Hoang.