Painting a vivid, personal portrait of social and political upheaval in Oaxaca, Mexico, this unique memoir employs comics, bilingual essays, photos, and sketches to chronicle the events that unfolded around a teachers' strike and led to a seven-month siege. When award-winning cartoonist Peter Kuper and his wife and daughter moved to the beautiful, 15th-century colonial town of Oaxaca in 2006, they planned to spend a quiet year or two enjoying a different culture and taking a break from the U.S. political climate under the Bush administration. What they hadn't counted on was landing in the epicenter of Mexico's biggest political struggle in recent years. Timely and compelling, this extraordinary firsthand account presents a distinct artistic vision of Oaxacan life, from explorations of the beauty of the environment to graphic portrayals of the fight between strikers and government troops that left more than 20 people dead, including American journalist Brad Will.
What People Are Saying
"Kuper has long been among the most politically engaged and stylistically distinctive artists working in comics, and both qualities take center stage here. An artist at the top of his form." Publisher's Weekly
"Fans of comics and art lovers will appreciate Kuper's unusual take on a remarkable place. Recommended for libraries, particularly those with graphic art and design collections, as well as general bookstores." Library Journal
"[Kuper's] attempt to escape the last years of the Bush Administration led him to relocate to a town that turned out to be under martial law, in an area plagued by riptides, ecotourists, and stray dogs, all faithfullyand hilariouslydocumented here." New Yorker
"Peter Kuper is undoubtedly the modern master whose work has refined the socially relevant comic to the highest point yet achieved." Newsarama.com
"The book, its text in English and Spanish, is beautiful, a real production: The textured, embossed cover evokes Mexican tiles, giving this Diario de Oaxaca elegant gravity and permanence." Boston Globe
"Maybe Peter Kuper’s greatest accomplishment as an artist. It flatters all of his strengths as an artist and limits his flaws." The Comics Journal by Rob Clough
"In the hands of an illustrator with such creative gifts, Oaxaca is a brilliant dreamscape whose bugs and vegetation are as visually appealing as its protest graffiti and wild dogs." World Literature in Review