Travelling Vietnam Through French Artist's Children Book

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Speaking to the Vietnamese reporters, Olivier Blanchin said that in 2018, he came to Vietnam to participate in an artist residency program in an ecological space. During that time, he spent time getting to know Hanoi and became very fond of the place. He was fascinated by the architecture, urban space, and crowded atmosphere of the city. The people he met everywhere in this land welcomed him with a very warm and honest attitude, especially when he had car problems or got lost.

French artist Olivier Blanchin (left). (Photo: Nhan Dan Newspaper)

All of that inspired Blanchin to want to learn more and explore Vietnam. He planned to visit all the famous lands, from North to South, through the Central region or in the remote lands of the Central Highlands. On this journey, he cherished the project of publishing the book “Sparrow’s Travelogue” to tell a story about Vietnam to foreign readers in general and in France in particular.

The story is about a young sparrow named Momo living in Hanoi welcoming his cousin Nino living in France back to Vietnam to meet relatives and embark on a journey to explore the country by motorbike. After Momo took Nino around Hanoi, they met with family members before traveling along the S-shaped strip of land, through many famous tourist provinces and cities such as Ninh Binh, Da Nang, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Da Lat (Lam Dong)... and stopped in Ho Chi Minh City. Here, the two sparrows continued to explore the city and then returned to Hanoi by train to welcome the new year with their family and relatives.

Images of Vietnam in the book "Sparrow's Travelogue".

According to Blanchin, the book is built in the genre of exploring books for children that are very popular in the West. They train children's observation, descriptive, and reasoning skills. “Sparrow’s Travelogue” is a picture book about landscapes, the narrative is brief, with some suggestions for readers to find details of the two sparrows Momo and Nino in each drawing. Small details are inserted to motivate children to explore and search for the two sparrows in the picture.

“This is a book for children first, so I wanted to keep things relatively simple. Children will also enjoy looking at the scenery more than the content about food or culture. However, the book is not only for boys and girls, but I want the world in general, and the French in particular, to see a strongly developing, dynamic, and peaceful Vietnam today”, Blanchin said.

Blanchin hopes to publish more books in the future, on more topics and for more readers in Vietnam, and around the world.

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