Next week, Arsenal Pulp Press will launch Postcards from Congo, a graphic novel historical past of the Democratic Republic of Congo from cartoonist Edmund Trueman. Ahead of the e-book’s launch, The Beat is happy to current an unique first have a look at Trueman’s preface to the graphic novel.
Here’s how Arsenal Pulp Press describes Postcards from Congo:
The Democratic Republic of Congo, the second-largest nation in Africa by space, has a fractured and bloody historical past, variously undone by many years of colonialism, civil warfare, corruption, and totalitarian rule. The nation has performed an important function in the financial development of the Global North, however in doing so, has suffered immensely. So many seminal advances in expertise have been potential solely by way of the extraction of supplies from Congo, from rubber to copper to uranium to coltan. In every case, the Congolese folks paid an ideal worth exacerbated by the weight of colonial exploitation and dictatorial rule.
In this complete graphic historical past, writer and illustrator Edmund Trueman explores the fractious story of Congo. Through deft illustrations and storytelling, Congo’s historical past – not broadly recognized to Western readers – comes vividly alive. We see how Congolese musicians have unfold their language throughout Africa by creating a few of the hottest music on the continent, and the way Congolese ladies have spent many years sidestepping sexist laws to change into leaders in native enterprise. From resistance in opposition to colonialism to the struggle for independence and the self-determination to make a life in an virtually stateless place, Postcards from Congo depicts how the Congolese folks have resisted and survived so as to take management of their lives and the nation they name residence.
While Edmund Trueman has been producing comics for the previous decade, Postcards from Congo is the cartoonist’s first graphic novel. The e-book additionally options an introduction from Johns Hopkins University Professor of African History Didier Gondola, himself the writer of a 2002 e-book on the History of Congo.
You can learn Trueman’s preface to the forthcoming e-book under. Postcards from Congo is due out in shops subsequent Tuesday, October twenty fifth.
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