Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography

"It has the thoroughness of a history book yet reads with the personalized vision of a novel." –Time


Chester Brown reinvents the comic-book medium to create the critically acclaimed historical biography Louis Riel, winning the Harvey Awards for best writing and best graphic novel for his compelling, meticulous, and dispassionate retelling of the charismatic, and perhaps insane, nineteenth-century Métis leader. Brown coolly documents with dramatic subtlety the violent rebellion on the Canadian prairie led by Riel, who some regard a martyr who died in the name of freedom, while others consider him a treacherous murderer.

Chester Brown was born in Montreal in 1960. He is the author of seven books and is best known for the non-fiction graphic novels Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography (2003) and Paying for It: A Comic-Strip Memoir About Being a John (2011). In 2024, Brown created a Louis Riel stamp for Canada Post as part of a set honouring Canadian cartoonists. He lives in Toronto.