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Misery of Love

Misery of Love

by Yvan Alagbé, translated from the French by Donald Nicholson-Smith

$22.46
$29.95 $22.46
Comics & Graphic Novels French Literature
Format

In Misery of Love, a spiritual sequel to the acclaimed Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures, Yvan Alagbé continues his unflinching interrogation of race and family in modern France. 

The book focuses on the dream-like memories of a woman named Clare, who is reluctantly spending time with her relatives for a funeral. Alagbé seamlessly glides between narratives of the family’s past and present, all haunted by the legacy of France’s colonial subjugation of Africa.

Alagbé works in stormy grayscale washes, using comics, as he puts it, as “a sacred dimension which celebrates, questions and perpetuates life.... I believe that life is not damnation but grace.”

Told through time shifts that echo Richard McGuire’s Here, Misery of Love is another ambitious, devastating masterpiece from one of France’s best contemporary graphic novelists.

Additional Book Information

Series: New York Review Comics
ISBN: 9781681379180
Pages: 232
Publication Date:

Praise

Alagbé shrouds his murky ink wash art in purposeful obscurity, with spectral human forms blurring into near-abstract compositions, like Gerhard Richter photo-paintings by way of Hugo Pratt. In haunted ellipses, Alagbé conjures an almost tactile sense of disquiet that isn’t easily shaken. It’s a stunning graphic novel counterpart to the obsessive fever dreams of Marguerite Duras and Claire Denis.
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

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