Thursday, April 19, 2012

Top 10 graphic memoirs

Mary Talbot is the author of the graphic novel Dotter of her Father's Eyes, illustrated by her husband, award winning comic artist Bryan Talbot. She is an internationally acclaimed scholar who has published Linkwidely on language, gender and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer culture. Dotter is the first work she has undertaken in the graphic novel format.

For the Guardian, the Talbots named their top ten graphic memoirs, including:
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Originally published in French, this is a candid and compelling tale of growing up in Iran in which Satrapi very effectively humanises her homeland for a "western" audience. This first volume of her autobiography spans the turbulent period when the Shah was deposed, when the revolution so long awaited by her Marxist family delivered intensified oppression at the hands of Islamic fundamentalists instead of the liberation they had anticipated. Drawn in simple, stark black and white, her own and her family's experience of the daily reality of public repression is conveyed with telling details of familiar ordinariness; the risk of alcohol in the house, the need to conceal a heavy metal poster, fear of being spotted wearing forbidden trainers.
Read about another memoir on the list.

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood is among Kamin Mohammadi's top ten Iranian books and Caradoc King's top ten childhood memoirs.

--Marshal Zeringue