On the last day of the Vietnam War, nine-year-old Hung jumped on a leaking prawn trawler on the Saigon River, somehow cheating death to become one of the first Vietnamese boat people to arrive Australia, a land where a young man’s potential is limited only by his imagination - that is unless you’re Hung Le.

Defying the stereotype, Hung wasn’t a math or computer whizz, he had no doctoring or lawyering abilities, spoke Vietnamese with an Australian accent, and couldn’t even play the violin. But what he was blessed with was funny bones, and through winning Red Faces on Hey Hey It’s Saturday he managed to make an international career playing the violin out of tune.

The Crappiest Refugee
is an hilarious and endearing memoir about a boat person who never found his land legs, but who has always seen the funny side.