Angelitos
A Graphic Novel
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
From internationally renowned Ilan Stavans, in collaboration with award-winning illustrator Santiago Cohen, comes Angelitos: A Graphic Novel, an explosive new graphic novel about a college student and his interactions with Padre Chinchachoma, a charismatic Catholic priest who devotes himself to rescuing homeless children in Mexico. Though his work gives hope to the desperate masses of children on the streets of Mexico City, his efforts interfere with and infuriate the police—with dire consequences. Set in a deeply classist society and against the backdrop of the tragic destruction of the 1985 earthquake in Mexico City, the core of the story also revolves around the student’s fear that Padre Chincha might be sexually abusing the children he rescues, at a time and place when such actions went unchecked by the Catholic Church.
Though Angelitos: A Graphic Novel is a fictional retelling of a desperate time, it draws on autobiographical elements to tell the real-life story of Alejandro García Durán de Lara, popularly known as Padre Chinchachoma, a complicated figure revered by some and reviled by others.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in the mid-'80s, this slim graphic novel follows a college student's encounters in a poverty-stricken Mexico City neighborhood before and after a devastating earthquake. After the student, nicknamed "El G erito," is mugged by homeless youth, a mixture of curiosity and bravery leads him into the slums searching for his stolen notebook. What he finds instead is a shelter run by Padre Chincha. Based on a real historical figure, the priest takes battered boys to the hospital, feeds them, and clothes them. He has also been accused of pedophilia. When a boy who snitched on a fellow gang member is found dead, the police seize their chance to arrest Chincha, given the rumors that surround him. Two of the boys who first attacked El G erito seek him out, asking for help in freeing their benefactor. When the earthquake hits, the focus on this plot is widened to take in broader tragedies as El G erito navigates the chaos across the city. The rough, scrawling linework and diagonal panel stacks suit the broken landscape of shantytowns, but they also make following the narrative a challenge, and the simple renderings of facial features becomes repetitive. While the book offers a thoughtful critique of religious hypocrisy and socioeconomic inequality, the poorly executed sequential art doesn't match its literary ambitions. Art not seen in color by PW.
