What makes a hero?
EW spoke with Nguyen this summer aboutThe Magic Fishand the love and heroism that it depicts.
Check out that interview below, along with colorful excerpts from the book.
Trung Le Nguyen for Random House Graphic
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you choose which three fairy tales to use in this book?
TRUNG LE NGUYEN:There are three fairy tales in the story.
The first two are Cinderella stories, and then the last one isThe Little Mermaid.
Trung Le Nguyen for Random House Graphic
Tien and Hien have very different visual imaginations and they grew up in very different places.
They have different visual priorities and they have different desires and wants.
She doesn’t know what she doesn’t know.
Trung Le Nguyen for Random House Graphic
What is the role of water in this book?
I always regard the ocean as sort of a liminal space.
It’s that big thing in between land masses and it’s a thing that kind of separates cultures.
Trung Le Nguyen for Random House Graphic
Obviously, that’s not the case, especially inThe Magic Fish.
What were you exploring with the way that Tien relates to the princesses in these stories?
We need to give boys a little bit more time before they can start exercising their empathy.
Trung Le Nguyen for Random House Graphic
That goes for people and characters from all different backgrounds.
It’s an experience that I really do find to be universal.
What were you exploring with translation in this story?
Trung Le Nguyen for Random House Graphic
I read a lot of coming out stories, and they’re always paired with trauma.
It’s always this kind of fraught thing.
I think it’s important to have those stories out there.
Trung Le Nguyen for Random House Graphic
It’s more that there is a communication barrier between people who genuinely love and support each other.
I think it’s the scope.
I love to read superhero comics.
Heroism looks like the character who is consistently kind and helps a lot of other characters along the way.
It’s an accessible sense of heroism.
It’s not a fantasy of power.
It’s more of a fantasy of growth.
This flares up a lot around Disney movies in particular.
That’s what I love so much aboutThe Magic Fishand what the mom discovers over the course of it.
As her aunt keeps telling her in Vietnam, these stories really aren’t unchangeable stone tablets or whatever.
Then, I did a little bit more digging on the story and it’s actually quite old.
The Hans Christian Anderson version isn’t even the oldest one.
It’s the one that we all happen to know, but it was written in the 1830s.
It’s always been about queer longing.
It’s sort of like a coming full circle on that story.
