Trung Le Nguyen
Author of The Magic Fish: A Graphic Novel
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Trung Le Nguyen is non-binary and uses he/they pronouns.
Works by Trung Le Nguyen
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Nguyen, Trung Le
- Legal name
- Nguyen, Trung Le
- Other names
- Trungles
- Birthdate
- 1990-06-02
- Gender
- non-binary
- Short biography
- Trung Le Nguyen, also known as Trungles, is a Vietnamese-American comic book artist and storyteller from Minnesota. He was born in a refugee camp somewhere in the Philippine province of Palawan.
Trung has contributed work for Oni Press, Boom! Studios, and Image Comics, largely in the romance genre. His first original graphic novel, The Magic Fish, is due out October 13, 2020 through Random House Graphic, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Trung currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and raises three very spoiled hens. He is particularly fond of fairy tales, kids' cartoons, and rom-coms of all stripes. - Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Palawan, Philippines
- Places of residence
- Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
- Disambiguation notice
- Trung Le Nguyen is non-binary and uses he/they pronouns.
- Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
Thirteen-year-old Tién reads fairy tales aloud in English to his mother, so she can improve her English. As an immigrant, she still speaks mostly Vietnamese. In his home, Tién and his mother and father speak a mixture of English and Vietnamese, but at school it’s all English, so Tién is the most fluent in English, and less so in Vietnamese.
The traditional folktales and literary fairy tales from Europe and Asia that he reads have bold plots, vivid stereotypical character types, and show more dramatic endings, sometimes happy, and sometimes tragic. Their characters act decisively. Tién finds his real life more complicated and fraught. Language differences don’t help. He wishes that he knew the Vietnamese words to tell his parents that he has a crush on one of his two best friends, the one who is a boy. He hears his mother speaking in anxious tones to her mother back in Vietnam, but he can’t really understand what’s going on between them. Then just when he gets up the courage to talk to her, his mother receives a shocking phone call, and announces that she’s flying back to Vietnam immediately. show less
The traditional folktales and literary fairy tales from Europe and Asia that he reads have bold plots, vivid stereotypical character types, and show more dramatic endings, sometimes happy, and sometimes tragic. Their characters act decisively. Tién finds his real life more complicated and fraught. Language differences don’t help. He wishes that he knew the Vietnamese words to tell his parents that he has a crush on one of his two best friends, the one who is a boy. He hears his mother speaking in anxious tones to her mother back in Vietnam, but he can’t really understand what’s going on between them. Then just when he gets up the courage to talk to her, his mother receives a shocking phone call, and announces that she’s flying back to Vietnam immediately. show less
Angelica and the Bear Prince is adorable, very funny, romantic, and emotionally resonant. It's got it all! Featuring Trung Le Nguyen's amazing artwork, it also has sweet second-chance romance for childhood friends, a delightfully and hilariously sour protagonist, great relationships, a cautionary tale about burnout, and a slightly more hidden, really touching story about grief.
Wow. Where I’ve been struggling finding a book I’ve liked lately, I’ve been stumbling upon the most amazing graphic novels. And this is my favorite by far.
Content warnings:
- in-book homophobia (including faith counseling)
- cannibalism
- gore
Representation:
- the protagonist is a Vietnamese-American gay boy
- his friends are a black girl and a latino boy (I assume?)
This graphic novel is essentially about Tiến, a Vietnamese-American boy, and his mother, an immigrant to the United States. show more It’s about their relationship as people who almost speak different languages, who sometimes feel like they have two separate cultures, and who want to bridge these gaps but don’t know how. It’s even more difficult for Tiến, who’s gay but doesn’t know the words for it in Vietnamese and so doesn’t know how to begin to come out to his family. But by using fairy tales, The Magic Fish shows us how we’re all connected.
First off I’m going to say the obvious: the art style in this is beyond stunning. I can’t stop looking at it. Every page feels both like something out of an old storybook and like something you could frame. There’s so much movement and detail and character in every single line. It also helps to show what story is being told at the moment. There are sometimes several stories going on at one time: Tiến’s reading a fairytale, his mom is thinking back to how it relates to a memory, and then the next page we're back into Tiến’s current life during school. One could be drawn only in tones of purple, the other orange, and the last in red, for example.
There’s also an incredible amount of attention to detail that makes the story and reading experience all the more satisfying. The author himself talks about this in his notes at the end, but he changes the visuals of the fairytales depending on who’s telling them. Tiến’s storytelling tends to have a more Eurocentric look because of where he was brought up, while his mother’s interpretations usually take place in Vietnam. I’d strongly advise you to read (and look at) these notes and concept illustrations at the back. They’re so insightful and beautiful and really add to what you just read.
The Magic Fish is definitely not a graphic novel to zoom through, and it’s definitely not a super light-hearted read either (the homophobia during Tiến’s faith counseling was Very Painful), but it does have an incredibly touching and hopeful ending too. I really don’t have much to say here other than it’s probably one of my new favorite graphic novels. Visually stunning with a beautiful storyline. show less
Content warnings:
- in-book homophobia (including faith counseling)
- cannibalism
- gore
Representation:
- the protagonist is a Vietnamese-American gay boy
- his friends are a black girl and a latino boy (I assume?)
This graphic novel is essentially about Tiến, a Vietnamese-American boy, and his mother, an immigrant to the United States. show more It’s about their relationship as people who almost speak different languages, who sometimes feel like they have two separate cultures, and who want to bridge these gaps but don’t know how. It’s even more difficult for Tiến, who’s gay but doesn’t know the words for it in Vietnamese and so doesn’t know how to begin to come out to his family. But by using fairy tales, The Magic Fish shows us how we’re all connected.
First off I’m going to say the obvious: the art style in this is beyond stunning. I can’t stop looking at it. Every page feels both like something out of an old storybook and like something you could frame. There’s so much movement and detail and character in every single line. It also helps to show what story is being told at the moment. There are sometimes several stories going on at one time: Tiến’s reading a fairytale, his mom is thinking back to how it relates to a memory, and then the next page we're back into Tiến’s current life during school. One could be drawn only in tones of purple, the other orange, and the last in red, for example.
There’s also an incredible amount of attention to detail that makes the story and reading experience all the more satisfying. The author himself talks about this in his notes at the end, but he changes the visuals of the fairytales depending on who’s telling them. Tiến’s storytelling tends to have a more Eurocentric look because of where he was brought up, while his mother’s interpretations usually take place in Vietnam. I’d strongly advise you to read (and look at) these notes and concept illustrations at the back. They’re so insightful and beautiful and really add to what you just read.
The Magic Fish is definitely not a graphic novel to zoom through, and it’s definitely not a super light-hearted read either (the homophobia during Tiến’s faith counseling was Very Painful), but it does have an incredibly touching and hopeful ending too. I really don’t have much to say here other than it’s probably one of my new favorite graphic novels. Visually stunning with a beautiful storyline. show less
Every night Tiến reads fairy tales to his mother to help her with her English. The Cinderella and Little Mermaid tales weave in among Tiến's and his mother's stories: Tiến is gay but hasn't come out to his parents because he doesn't know the Vietnamese words to express himself. Hiến, his mother, was a refugee; now, back home, her mother is ailing and she longs to go back and see her again. The fairy tales' transformation themes echo the transformative and loving shift in relationship show more between mother and son. An enchanted and grounded work. show less
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- Rating
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