“The attitude has probably changed slightly,' said Do. However, Do says that over the years his adopted home has become less welcoming to outsiders. Vietnamese Australians are often highly represented in universities and many professions and are generally regarded as part of Australia’s multicultural success story. Thousands more have been granted visas as part of family reunion programs. We were attacked by pirates twice.”ĭo, who is also a successful stand-up comedian, plans to turn the Happy Refugee into a movie.īetween 19, more than 110,000 Vietnamese refugees were allowed to settle in Australia. We were at sea for five days, a very perilous journey.

There were 40 of us on a 9-meter fishing boat.

One of my uncles was actually a sapper who cleared land mines for Anzacs, Australian soldiers, and we had to flee Vietnam. 'So after the war finished my family were persecuted and they were in danger. “Basically my uncles fought alongside Aussie soldiers in the Vietnam War,' he said. The story is told in his autobiography The Happiest Refugee, which has been honored at the Australian Book Industry Awards in Melbourne where it was chosen as the nation’s Book of the Year.ĭo says it details his family’s perilous escape from Vietnam. They were eventually granted permission to resettle in Australia and Do was two when his family arrived to start a new life in 1980. His uncles had fought alongside Australian soldiers in the conflict, making the family possible targets for retribution. It tells the story of a refugee family’s perilous escape from the war in Vietnam in the late 1970s.Īttacked by pirates during their escape from repression in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Anh Do and his family were rescued by a German merchant ship and taken to a refugee camp in Malaysia. Anh Do, a comedian and author, won three awards for his book, The Happiest Refugee. Vietnamese Refugee Wins Top Australian Literary AwardĪ Vietnamese man who first came to Australia more than 30 years ago as a refugee has been recognized at Australia's premier literary awards.

Anh do book the happiest refugee