Vietnamese Memories Vol.1: Leaving Saigon

About Clement BaloupPierre Daum

Clement Baloup entered Angoulêmes prestigious Beaux-Arts Program in 1997 and spent the next five years enriching both his perception and practice of sequential storytelling. In 2004 he published his first comic book Autumn in Hanoi a mix of travel log and short stories. Clement has gone on to become a versatile creator: besides his more personal graphic novels (the Vietnamese Memories trilogy) which he both wrote and illustrated he has written stories in a variety of genres illustrated by other artists such as Chinh Tri (Le Seuil) La Concubine Rouge (Gallimard) both with Mathieu Jiro Suicide Club (Soleil) with Eddy Vaccaro or Le ventre de la Hyène (Lombard) with Chris Alliel to name a few. His work has been translated into English Spanish Italian German and can be regularly found in magazines as XXI (France) or Internazionale (Italy). Additionally his works as a fine artist have entered several private and public collections around the world (Marseille Paris Bruxelles Dubaï and London). Clement was awarded numerous prizes for his series Vietnamese Memories including the Jurys Choice Prize at the 2011 Angoulême International Comics Festival and the Doctors Without Borders Prize in Clermont-Ferrand.The second part of Vietnamese Memories: Leaving Saigon Linh Tho is based on a true story inspired by Pierre Daums 4-year investigation published as a non-fiction novel under the name Immigrés de Force (The Forced Immigrants Éditions Actes Sud 2009) which chronicled the fate of 20000 Indochinese workers displaced during World War II. His book triggered a major call to action encouraging many French cities to restore and honor the memory of those long-forgotten immigrants. Pierre Daum is currently focused on deep investigative journalism.