Delisle says he knew nothing about the Israeli-Palestinian situation when he landed at Ben Gurion airport in August 2008, accompanying Nadège on another MSF assignment: “I was a blank slate. The 46-year-old Delisle says the political subject matter appeals to people who usually regard comics as frivolous: “People go for these works-for more mature subjects.”īut even though Jerusalem is a meditation on politics and religion, it seems inadvertent. He says he didn’t sell a huge number of his first book, Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China, “but things have changed a lot.” Jerusalem, the English language version of which just came out in April, hit the top of the New York Times Graphic Novel bestseller list and just won the prestigious Fauve d’Or prize for best comic album at this year’s International Comics Festival in Angoulême, France. His earlier travel books have covered sojourns in China and North Korea, where he worked as an animator, and Burma, where he tagged along with his wife, Nadège, who worked for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders). His latest, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, follows French-Canadian househusband on a yearlong stay in the the fragmented, violent, often absurd world that is Israel and the Palestinian territories. A “graphic memoirist,” he creates thoughtful autobiographical travelogues about off-the-beaten-path locales. Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
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