Awards

• Winner of Firecracker Alternative Book Award (Graphic Novel) 2002

Overview

Prior to Safe Area Gorazde: The War In Eastern Bosnia 1992-1995—Joe Sacco's breakthrough novel of graphic journalism—the acclaimed author was best known for Palestine, a two-volume graphic novel that won an American Book Award in 1996. Fantagraphics Books is pleased to present the first single-volume collection of this landmark of journalism and the art form of comics. Based on several months of research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s (where he conducted over 100 interviews with Palestinians and Jews), Palestine was the first major comics work of political and historical nonfiction by Sacco, whose name has since become synonymous with this graphic form of New Journalism. Like Safe Area Gorazde, Palestine has been favorably compared to Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus for its ability to brilliantly navigate such socially and politically sensitive subject matter within the confines of the comic book medium. Sacco has often been called the first comic book journalist, and he is certainly the best. This edition of Palestine also features an introduction from renowned author, critic, and historian Edward Said (Peace and Its Discontents and The Question of Palestine), one of the world's most respected authorities on the Middle Eastern conflict.

Full Product Details

9781560974321

Table of Contents

Reviews

Sacco uses the comic book format to its fullest extent, creating bold perspectives that any photojournalist would envy.

Based on his research, interviews, and personal experiences in Palastinian Occupied Territories in 1991 and 92, [Palestine] takes you there and gives you a first-hand account of the atrocities and suffering in the conflict with Israel. He gives you a close up visual rendering of the physical and emotional conditions of the people, who struggle daily for survival... Sacco has rendered the terrible conditions of life into a compelling and sympathetic artistic documentary. It is sad, but most good stories are sad... What's better, his drawing is detailed and realistic, very approachable and interesting.

Sacco's Palestine brilliantly and poignantly captures the essence of life under a repressive and prolonged occupation. -- Nasseer H. Azuri, Professor of Political Science, The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

Sacco is a pioneer. Sacco is a pioneer. Sacco's Palestine brilliantly and poignantly captures the essence of life under a repressive and prolonged occupation. --Nasseer H. Azuri, Professor of Political Science, The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Based on his research, interviews, and personal experiences in Palastinian Occupied Territories in 1991 and 92, [Palestine] takes you there and gives you a first-hand account of the atrocities and suffering in the conflict with Israel. He gives you a close up visual rendering of the physical and emotional conditions of the people, who struggle daily for survival... Sacco has rendered the terrible conditions of life into a compelling and sympathetic artistic documentary. It is sad, but most good stories are sad... What s better, his drawing is detailed and realistic, very approachable and interesting. Sacco uses the comic book format to its fullest extent, creating bold perspectives that any photojournalist would envy.

Sacco uses the comic book format to its fullest extent, creating bold perspectives that any photojournalist would envy. Sacco is a pioneer.

This collection of Joe Sacco's nine-issue comic series, based on his personal investigation of the plight of the Palestinians, is chilling in its power. In 1991 and 1992, when Sacco visited the West Bank and the Gaza strip to research his material, he came armed with the cynical professionalism typical of modern reportage. But what he found there moved him to take sides, and produce work comparable in power to Art Spiegelmann's seminal graphic novel Maus. The magic of the comic illustrator's medium lies in the immediacy of the framed pictorial narrative. In the hands of artists like Sacco, the words and pictures combine to project ideas with an apparent honesty unlike any other medium, and his black-and-white sketches invest the human tragedy with a depth of emotion that even the best photojournalism cannot achieve. The series has been collected and published for the first time as a single volume. It has already won a 1996 American Book Award so its pedigree is eminently vouched for. In the current state of international affairs, when it seems the eyes of the world are focused on the issues raised by the Middle East and the manipulations of the great political powers, you will not find a better depiction of life in the occupied territories. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Joe Sacco lives in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of many acclaimed graphic novels, including Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde, But I Like It, Notes from a Defeatist, The Fixer, War's End, and Footnotes in Gaza. Edward W. Said was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Literature and of Kings College Cambridge, his celebrated works include Orientalism, The End of the Peace Process, Power, Politics and Culture, and the memoir Out of Place. He is also the editor, with Christopher Hitchens, of Blaming the Victims, published by Verso. He died in September 2003.

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