Tintin in the Congo revival
I remember Tintin as a child but mainly from a cartoon series that aired during the summer holidays. Herge’s adventures of Tintin passed me by but when I brought up the subject in the office I was surprised by the number of Tintin fans who suddenly emerged from the woodwork.
Earlier this year in the UK, Tintin was in the headlines but for all the wrong reasons. A human rights lawyer had filed a complaint with the Commission for Racial Equality over the racist content of Tintin in the Congo. Some bookshops removed the book, some shifted the book out of the children’s section.
Clearly Tintin in the Congo is racist but it was written 77 years ago and politically correct writing wasn’t the flavour of the month as colonial Europe geared for another world war.
The controversy simply reignited interest in the Belgian author and his intrepid reporter. Tintin in the Congo and many other Tintin books have sold heavily on AbeBooks.co.uk since July and Tintin in the Congo is easily the most popular one. Nostalgia and historical curiosity are the most probable reasons for the interest in an old-fashioned hero forgotten by many.
The ten bestselling Tintin Books on AbeBooks.co.uk in 2007
- Tintin in the Congo
- Tintin in America
- Tintin in Tibet
- Tintin and the Picaros
- Tintin in the Land of the Soviets
- Tintin and the Alph-Art
- Cigars of the Pharaoh
- The Castafiore Emerald
- The Crab with the Golden Claws
- The Blue Lotus
On 6 December a Tintin stage play opens in London’s West End and a Tintin movie trilogy is being planned in Hollywood, so there’s going to be plenty of opportunities to analyse this old fashioned hero.