Three Funerals for My Father

“Three Funerals for My Father is the powerful story of a family’s journey from Vietnam to Canada, lyrically told in three distinct voices. It is at once a heart-wrenching memoir and a reckoning of sorts—an unflinching view of the peril and terrible costs to one family making a journey as refugees to an unfamiliar land, uncertain of their welcome … Intimate and unforgettable.” K.C. DYER

“Unlike most memoirs about the immigrant experience that center around overcoming hurdles to build a new life, Jolie Phuong Hoang instead structures Three Funerals For My Father around her father’s death as he tries to escape Vietnam by boat in 1985. Her younger sister also drowned on that journey. It takes Hoang three decades to come to terms with her father’s and sister’s deaths and her book tells their stories and how her father did whatever he could to bring his family to safer shores … Hoang’s memoir is a moving tribute to her father’s memory and the lengths he took to make sure his family was safe.” SUSAN BLUMBERG KASON, Asian Review of Books

As a teenager, Jolie Phuong Hoang escaped from Vietnam with her siblings. Arriving in Canada in 1984, she finished high school and trained in mathematics, all the while retaining her love of writing. Her work has been recognized by the North Street Book Prize (Winner, Literary Fiction, 2020), the San Francisco Book Festival (Honourable Mention, 2020) and the Surrey International Writers Festival (Finalist, 2020). A college professor of mathematics, Jolie lives with her daughters in Fonthill, Ontario.