Portugal
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
From the author of the acclaimed Equinoxes comes a return to roots that serves as spiritual renewal. Comics artist Simon Muchat is stuck. Suffering writer's block, uninspired, vegetating as a school art teacher, he is losing direction and his taste for life, until one day he is invited to appear at a comics convention in Portugal, the country his family came from and which he hadn't seen since his childhood. Even though he is a foreigner there, so many elements of the country are familiar to him. Meeting its lively citizens and recounting early memoreis brought by back his distant yet welcoming family all prove reinvigorating—the breath of fresh air he so badly needed. Based on his own experience, Pedrosa narrates this return to his roots in a deeply compelling and warmly human way. This bestselling graphic novel has sold more than 100,000 copies in France and a has won many prizes, including Best Graphic Novel at the Angouleme Festival and FNAC Best GN.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A note for all blocked artists: when in doubt, uncover your roots in a foreign country. That's the magic formula followed by Simon Muchat, the cartoonist beset by midlife ennui in this tour de force from Pedrosa (Equinoxes). A bestseller in his native France, Pedrosa's semiautobiographical graphic novel unpacks a layered story of memory and identity, following Simon's creative reawakening through the discovery of his family's past. Things start accidentally for Simon: in a career slump, he attends a comics convention in Portugal. The country of his parents' origins, only vaguely remembered from childhood visits, reignites his curiosity and drive. Back home, he discovers shards of family history at a raucous wedding party, enticing him to return to Portugal and extract more lore from distant cousins. The emotionally affecting journey hinges on the unique local characters, who immediately call Simon one of their own. Pedrosa's loose, expansive writing style is perfectly complemented by his lush, lightly lined drawings, in which people and their stories overlap each other with discursive enthusiasm. Everybody has a lot to say in this graphic novel whose gorgeous art is as full as its story.
