Ending the Silence
Chi Thai, film-maker, talks about her book The Endless Sea, which tells the true story of her childhood as a refugee at the end of the Vietnam war.
Some stories live in our bones, carried in our blood. The Endless Sea is one of those stories for me. It’s the first story I remember being told, passed down so many times that it almost feels like it wrote itself—flowing from my childhood memories, down my arm, through my fingers, and finally onto the page. It is the story of my family’s refugee journey.
People often ask why I wrote it. The truth is, for much of my life, I didn’t think about putting our story into words. I knew the facts – how my family fled our tiny village, risking everything – but I hadn’t considered writing them down. It wasn’t until I became a mother that I realized something was missing. I had nothing tangible to share with my young daughter that could explain the journey we had taken and why. There was only silence – an emptiness waiting to be filled.
That emptiness lingered, calling to me. I thought about it often but wasn’t ready to act. Then, while working with Nicola Davies and Laura Carlin on adapting their perfect picture book, The Promise, into a BBC animation, something shifted. I felt ready and had become the person I needed to be to tell this story. I scribbled down the first draft, then sat with my mother to make sure I had the details right. Though I had heard the story countless times, I questioned myself—so much of it had become a memory of a memory as I grew from child to adult.
In many ways, I wrote The Endless Sea for my younger self. A story to make sense of what my family endured. A way to hold together the vast history of conflict and political forces that threw us – and so many others – into turmoil, forcing us to take unimaginable risks.
As I write this for Books for Keeps, we stand on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. When my family stepped onto
that boat, we were four among more than six million refugees worldwide. Today, over 110 million people are forcibly displaced, including more than 36 million refugees. The numbers are staggering, but they are not just statistics—they are stories, lives, and families searching for safety. Many are not as lucky as our family was.
That is why The Endless Sea feels more relevant than ever. It is a story for anyone and everyone who has ever been forced to leave their home in search of safety.
Chi Thai is a British Vietnamese independent filmmaker. She is a BIFA-nominated producer and a Screen International Star of Tomorrow. She directed and produced the short film adaptation of award-winning Walker Books title The Promise by Nicola Davies and Laura Carlin. Her production company, Last Conker, was awarded the BFI Vision Award in 2020–22 and produces films that unravel from the complex web of diaspora. She produced the two-time SXSW23 Grand Jury winning film, Raging Grace. Her latest work, Lullaby, is a deeply personal short film inspired by her refugee crossing. It serves as a creative counterpart to her debut picture book, The Endless Sea. Both works explore themes of resilience and hope. The Endless Sea is Chi’s debut picture book.
The Endless Sea by Chi Thai, illustrated by Linh Dao, is published by Walker Studio, 9781529516487, £12.99 hbk.
