Image: Akino Kondoh, Detail from Ladybirds' Requiem
February brings our annual showcase of the international graphic novel. On topics ranging from the Spanish Civil War to the Shining Path, organized labor in France and broken homes in South Africa, these artists delineate character and plot in their singular styles. See how Antonio Altarriba and Kim, Jesús Cossio, Étienne Davodeau, Karlien de Villiers, Akino Kondoh, Migo Rollz, and Li-Chin Yin make every picture tell a story. And in a special feature, graphic artist and translator Matt Madden introduces the Oubapo, the graphic arm of the Oulipo, with wildly inventive work by François Ayroles, Patrice Killoffer, and Etienne Lécroart.
In the latest installment of our World Through the Eyes of Writers column, the great Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko introduces Belarus’s Uladzimir Niakliaeu.
Tongue-tied
I felt like I had a Taiwanese body with the mask of a Chinese person.
A Shining Path of Blood: Massacres and a Monologue
Silence! One must not question the justice meted out by the Party!
Ladybirds’ Requiem
The whole thing started with an accident.
from “The Art of Flying”
After four days they started passing out rations—a loaf of bread for every ten people.
My Mother Was a Very Beautiful Woman
She tried homeopathic remedies and other alternative medicines.
Mean Folk: The Story of a Movement
Our workdays were long, the work was mind-numbing.
The Last of the Bunch
He moved away more than thirty years before you were born.
Oubapo Comics
Oubapo: Comics and Constraints from France
Newspaper strips are the haiku of comics.
Acrostic
Let's go . . . far away . . . anywhere . . . start over
Palindrome
Why don't we visit my parents on the farm?
Counting on You
I still can't bring myself to erase your name from my address book.
Book Reviews
Eduardo Halfon’s “The Polish Boxer”
Reviewed by Anderson Tepper
Kirill Medvedev’s “It’s No Good: poems/ essays/ actions”
Reviewed by Christopher Tauchen