Diario de Oaxaca

Overview

A one-of-a-kind recollection of political unrest south of the border

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.

Reviews

"Kuper is a colossus; I have been in awe of him for over 20 years. Teachers and students everywhere take heart: Kuper has in these pages born witness to our seemingly endless struggle to educate and to be educated in the face of institutions that really don't give a damn. In this ruined age we need Kuper's unsparing compassionate visionary artistry like we need hope." —Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

"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 faithfully—and hilariously—documented 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

Author Biography

Peter Kuper is a cofounder and editorial board member of political graphics magazine World War 3 Illustrated and a teacher who has taught at New York's School of Visual Arts and Parsons The New School for Design. Best known for drawing Mad magazine's Spy vs. Spy comic since 1997, he has also illustrated covers for Newsweek and Time magazines. He is the author of the graphic novel Sticks and Stones, which won the New York Society of Illustrators gold medal, and his autobiography, Stop Forgetting to Remember. He lives in New York City. Martín Solares is the author of Los Minutos Negros (The Black Minutes).