Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China - Hardcover

Delisle, Guy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1894937791 ISBN 13: 9781894937795

Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly, 2006

Synopsis

The follow-up graphic novel to the acclaimed Pyongyang: A Journey to North Korea
Shenzhen is entertainingly compact, with Guy Delisle's observations of life in a cold urban city in southern China that is sealed off from the rest of the country by electric fences and armed guards. With a dry wit and a clean line, Delisle makes the most of his time spent in Asia overseeing outsourced production for a French animation company. By translating his fish-out-of-water experiences into accessible graphic novels,Delisle is quick to find the humor and point out the differences between Western and Eastern cultures. Yet he never forgets to relay his compassion for the simple freedoms that escape his colleagues by virtue of living in a Communist state.

About this title

About the Author:

GUY DELISLE spent the past year living in Burma. He has written four graphic novels in French; Shenzhen is his second translated into English. He was born in Quebec and lives in France.

From Publishers Weekly:

Last year's Pyongyang introduced Delisle's acute voice, as he reported from North Korea with unusual insight and wit, not to mention wonderfully detailed cartooning. Shenzhen is not a follow-up so much as another installment in what one hopes is an ongoing series of travelogues by this talented artist. Here he again finds himself working on an animated movie in a Communist country, this time in Shenzhen, an isolated city in southern China. Delisle not only takes readers through his daily routine, but also explores Chinese custom and geography, eloquently explaining the cultural differences city to city, company to company and person to person. He also goes into detail about the food and entertainment of the region as well as animation in general and his own career path. All of this is the result of his intense isolation for three months in an anonymous hotel room. He has little to do but ruminate on his surroundings, and readers are the lucky beneficiaries of his loneliness. As in his earlier work, Delisle draws in a gentle cartoon style: his observations are grounded in realism, but his figures are light cartoons, giving the book, as Delisle himself remarks, a feeling of an alternative Tintin. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1894937791
• ISBN 13: 9781894937795
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 152