Hostage

The extraordinary new work by the author of Jerusalem and The Burma Chronicles

Guy Delisle conveys great, slow-burning tension in this sublime account of what Christophe Andre endured as a hostage in Chechnya. Delisle’s controlled handling of claustrophobic physical and mental spaces – and the rhythm he generates – is the work of a patient master.

A book about a man trapped in the corner of a room should not be exhilarating, but somehow Delisle has managed to create just that. He takes us through Christophe André’s narrative of his time spent as a prisoner with an attention to detail that makes you feel like you’re right there with him, chained to a radiator, counting the days to keep yourself from losing your mind. My heart was racing by the end.

A gripping visual narrative… You’re able to absorb the terrible accretion of time in a single glace – at which point you suddenly grasp just how well the comic serves this particular story. All this darkness and claustrophobia shouldn’t be exhilarating. The fact Delisle makes it so is yet another reason why he must be counted as one of the greatest cartoonists of our age.

Here, Delisle takes a back seat and interprets someone else’s extraordinary experiences… As a graphic novelist, working with a lone, often inactive protagonist and a minimum of bare props… Delisle draws each day in cycles of subtle variations… Readers will find themselves held hostage to the end by Guy Delisle’s immersive interpretation of one ordinary man’s extraordinary resilience.

He deftly mines stillness and long stretches of inaction for uncomfortably taut drama. Delisle’s monochromatic palette only heightens the sense of captivity as a brutal mind game of uncertainty.

A brilliant portrait of the psychological effects of solitary confinement by a much-celebrated author.

Guy Delisle was born in Quebec City, Canada. His bestselling and acclaimed travelogues (Pyongyang, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, Burma Chronicles, and Shenzhen) are defining works of graphic nonfiction, and in 2012, Delisle was awarded the top prize in European cartooning when the French edition of Jerusalem was named Best Album at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. He lives in France with his wife and children.

HOW DOES ONE SURVIVE WHEN ALL HOPE IS LOST? 
 
In the middle of the night in 1997, Doctors Without Borders administrator Christophe André was kidnapped by armed men and taken away to an unknown destination in the Caucasus region. For three months, André was kept handcuffed in solitary confinement, with little to survive on and almost no contact with the outside world. Close to twenty years later, award-winning cartoonist Guy Delisle (Pyongyang, Jerusalem, Shenzhen, Burma Chronicles) recounts André’s harrowing experience in Hostage, a book that attests to the power of one man’s determination in the face of a hopeless situation. 
 
Marking a departure from the author’s celebrated first-person travelogues, Delisle tells the story through the perspective of the titular captive, who strives to keep his mind alert as desperation starts to set in. Working in a pared down style with muted colour washes, Delisle conveys the psychological effects of solitary confinement, compelling us to ask ourselves some difficult questions regarding the repercussions of negotiating with kidnappers and what it really means to be free. Thoughtful, intense, and moving, Hostage takes a profound look at what drives our will to survive in the darkest of moments.

Chronicles from the Holy City

Jerusalem

Acclaimed graphic memoirist Guy Delisle returns with his strongest work yet - a thoughtful and moving travelogue about life in the Holy City.

His witty observation and beautiful pictures are delightful.

A witty, wise graphic travelogue that says more about everyday life in the region than all the news reports and "gritty" features.

A wonderfully candid book, which makes the situation’s hideously insoluble complexities more vividly understandable than anything else I have encountered.

My other favourite graphic book of the year... makes breathtakingly light work of one of the world’s most complex political situations.

His [Delisle’s] quizzical, bemused approach comes as a breath of fresh air on a topic fraught with political division…the utterly distinctive drawings are as enchanting as ever.

Quietly living his life and observing what goes on around him, Delisle captures the craziness, beauty and tragedy of the Israel-Palestine conundrum.

Jerusalem is Delisle’s biggest and most accomplished work to date… Without Delisle we might never learn what it’s actually like to live in a place like this, or get a realistic idea of the people we would meet if we did. He’s clear-eyed, good-hearted, he takes what he sees and he turns it into art.

A brilliant, educational piece of observational journalism.

Delisle’s artwork is just stunning and accompanies the tale brilliantly.

Delisle’s genius lies in his ability to simplify convoluted international situations and make them vividly relatable to the reader.

Guy Delisle expertly lays the groundwork for a cultural road map of contemporary Jerusalem, utilizing the classic stranger-in-a-strange-land point of view that made his other books, Pyongyang, Shenzhen, and Burma Chronicles, required reading for understanding what daily life is like in cities few are able to travel to. In Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, Delisle explores the complexities of a city that represents so much to so many. He eloquently examines the impact of the conflict on the lives of people on both sides of the wall while drolly recounting the quotidian: checkpoints, traffic jams, and holidays. 
 
When observing the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations that call Jerusalem home, Delisle's drawn line is both sensitive and fair, assuming nothing and drawing everything. Jerusalem showcases once more Delisle's mastery of the travelogue.

Burma Chronicles

From the critically acclaimed author of Pyongyang and Shenzen, Burma Chronicles is a masterful graphic novel, and a timely and incisive portrait of a country on the tipping point.

It’s insightful and is able to carry the weight of Burma’s troublesome history, enabling the reader to learn about the real lives of Burmese people, through a mix of current affairs and, surprisingly considering the subject, humour.

Simply put, Burma Chronicles is the most enlightening and insightful book on Burma in years... If you must visit Burma while it remains under the rule of the iniquitous junta, do so with the express intention of bearing witness to the tragedy and suffering of its people. Better still, stay away, and visit it instead through the pages of this heartbreaking, educational and insightful comic masterpiece

As a counterpoint to the often inaccessible news stories about the country, this is an excellent portrait of a little-understood land, and makes for a deeply original and fascinating piece of travel writing

This book is more fun than most holidays and more enlightening than a hundred blogs by self-appointed experience censors

Guy Delisle's newest travelogue revolves around a year spent in Burma (also known as Myanmar) with his wife and son. Burma is notorious for its use of concealment and isolation as social control: where scissor-wielding censors monitor the papers, the de facto leader of the opposition has been under decade-long house arrest, insurgent-controlled regions are effectively cut off from the world, and rumour is the most reliable source of current information. 
 
An impressive and moving work of comics journalism from the author of Pyongyang and Shenzen.

A Journey in North Korea

Pyongyang

'Great stuff - and proof that the comics panel can be another kind of window on the world' - Guardian

Delisle has drawn an unforgettable picture of Pyongyang

Combining a gift for anecdote and an ear for absurd dialogue, Delisle's retelling of his adventures makes a gently humorous counterpoint to the daily news stories about the axis of evil, a Lost in Translation for the Communist world. Delisle's simple but expressive art works well with his account, humanizing the few North Koreans he gets to know and facilitating digressions into North Korean history and various bizarre happenings involving brandy and bear cubs. Pyongyang will appeal to multiple audiences: current events buffs, Persepolis fans and those who just love a good yarn

News coverage from North Korea is scant - the regime of the world's last true totalitarian state is not exactly welcoming to foreign journalists. But a new graphic novel gives a rare, tragicomic, glimpse into everyday life in the drabbest of world capitals

The reigning king of the graphic travel memoir... Delisle's curiosity and amusement at the country's bizarre relationship with foreign visitors is equally funny and fascinating

Famously referred to as part of the 'Axis-of-Evil', North Korea remains one of the most secretive and mysterious nations in the world today. A series of manmade and natural catastrophes have also left it one of the poorest. When the fortress-like country recently opened the door a crack to foreign investment, cartoonist Guy Delisle found himself in its capital Pyongyang on a work visa for a French film animation company, becoming one of the few Westerners to witness current conditions in the surreal showcase city. 
 
Armed with a smuggled radio and a copy of 1984, Delisle could only explore Pyongyang and its countryside while chaperoned by his translator and a guide. But among the statues, portraits and propaganda of leaders Kim Il-Sung and his son Kim Jong-Il - the world's only Communist dynasty - Delisle was able to observe more than was intended of the culture and lives of the few North Koreans he encountered. 
 
His astute and wry musings on life in the austere and grim regime form the basis of this remarkable graphic novel. Pyongyang is an informative, personal and accessible look at an enigmatic country.

Guy Delisle

Like last year's Pyongyang, about his similar stint in North Korea, Shenzhen is a casual, dryly witty series of observations... Delisle's got an animator's eye for quirks of motion, analyzing the arc of a public fountain's water and the way street vendors make popcorn in a pressure cooker. The best artwork in the book is his impressionistic, unnarrated pen-and-ink-wash drawings of Shenzhen's drab buildings and billboards, but Delisle's keen awareness of how and why he can't connect to the city makes for a rarity: a thoroughly engaging memoir of being bored to distraction.

A Travelogue From China

Guy Delisle's work for a French animation studio requires him to oversee production at various Asian studios on the grim frontiers of free trade. His employer puts him up for months at a time in 'cold and soulless' hotel rooms where he suffers the usual deprivations of a man very far from home. After Pyongyang, his book about the strange society that is North Korea, Delisle turned his attention to Shenzhen, the cold, urban city in Southern China that is sealed off with electric fences and armed guards from the rest of the country. The result is another brilliant graphic novel - funny, scary, utterly original and illuminating.

Guy Delisle

Praise for Shenzhen

Like last year's Pyongyang, about his similar stint in North Korea, Shenzhen is a casual, dryly witty series of observations... Delisle's got an animator's eye for quirks of motion, analyzing the arc o ...

Books by Guy Delisle

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