Libri di Joe Sacco migliori da leggere e consigliati

Tra la fine del 1991 e l’inizio del 1992 Joe Sacco ha trascorso due mesi in Israele e nei Territori Occupati, viaggiando e prendendo appunti. Ha vissuto nei campi palestinesi, condividendone la vita (o meglio, la loro sopravvivenza) in mezzo al fango, in baracche di lamiera arrugginita, tra coprifuoco e retate dell’esercito israeliano. Risultato del suo meticoloso lavoro d’inchiesta è questo volume che, combinando la tecnica del reportage di prima mano con quella della narrazione a fumetti, riesce a dare espressione a una realtà tanto complessa e coinvolgente come quella del Medio Oriente.

In his first full-length work of journalism in a decade, the ‘heir to R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman’ (Economist) brings his comics mastery to a story of indigenous North America, resource extraction, and our debt to the natural world *A GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE YEAR* The Dene have lived in the vast Mackenzie River Valley since time immemorial, by their account. To the Dene, the land owns them, not the other way around-it is central to their livelihood and their very way of being. But the subarctic Canadian Northwest Territories are also home to valuable natural resources, including oil, gas and diamonds. With mining came jobs and investment-but also road-building, pipelines and toxic waste, which scarred the landscape; and alcohol, drugs, and debt, which deformed a way of life. In Paying the Land, Joe Sacco travels the frozen North to reveal a people in conflict over the costs and benefits of development. Resource extraction is only part of Canada’s colonial legacy: Sacco recounts the shattering impact of a residential school system that aimed to remove the Indian from the child; the destructive process that drove the Dene from the bush into settlements and turned them into wage labourers; the government land claims stacked against the Dene Nation; and their uphill efforts to revive a wounded culture. Against a vast and gorgeous landscape that dwarfs all human scale, Paying the Land lends an ear to trappers and chiefs, activists and priests, telling a sweeping story about money and dependency, loss and culture, with stunning visual detail by one of the greatest comics reporters alive.

Iniziata il 1° luglio 1916, la Battaglia della Somme è diventata il simbolo della follia della Prima guerra mondiale. Solo durante quel primo giorno vennero uccisi circa 21.000 soldati britannici e altri 57.000 vennero feriti. Quando l’offensiva si arrestò, i caduti erano più di un milione. In “La Grande Guerra”, il giornalista-fumettista Joe Sacco rappresenta gli eventi di quel giorno con un’opera panoramica muta, straordinariamente dettagliata: dal generale Douglas Haig alle imponenti postazioni di artiglieria dietro le linee, alle legioni di soldati che emergono dalle trincee per essere abbattuti nella terra di nessuno, fino alle decine di migliaia di feriti in ritirata e ai morti seppelliti in massa.

In late l991 and early 1992, at the time of the first Intifada, Joe Sacco spent two months with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, travelling and taking notes. Upon returning to the United States he started writing and drawing Palestine, which combines the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling to explore this complex, emotionally weighty situation. He captures the heart of the Palestinian experience in image after unforgettable image, with great insight and remarkable humour. The nine-issue comics series won a l996 American Book Award. It is now published for the first time in one volume, befitting its status as one of the great classics of graphic non-fiction.

In late 1995 and early 1996, cartoonist/reporter Joe Sacco travelled four times to Gorazde, a UN-designated safe area during the Bosnian War, which had teetered on the brink of obliteration for three and a half years. Still surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces, the mainly Muslim people of Gorazde had endured heavy attacks and severe privation to hang on to their town while the rest of Eastern Bosnia was brutally ‘cleansed’ of its non-Serb population. But as much as Safe Area Gorazde is an account of a terrible siege, it presents a snapshot of people who were slowly letting themselves believe that a war was ending and that they had survived. Since it was first published in 2000, Safe Area Gorazde has been recognized as one of the absolute classics of graphic non-fiction. We are delighted to publish it in the UK for the first time, to stand beside Joe Sacco’s other books on the Cape list – Palestine, The Fixer and Notes from a Defeatist.