Misery of Love

<b>Colonial history haunts this stunning, spectral-looking graphic novel, a spiritual sequel to the author’s <i>Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures.</i></b><br><br>In <i>Misery of Love</i>, a spiritual sequel to the acclaimed <i>Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures</i>, Yvan Alagbé continues his unflinching interrogation of race and family in modern France.<br><br>The book focuses on the dream-like memories of a woman named Clare, who is reluctantly spending time with her relatives for a funeral. Alagbé seamlessly glides between narratives of the family’s past and present, all haunted by the legacy of France’s colonial subjugation of Africa.<br><br>Alagbé works in stormy grayscale washes, using comics, as he puts it, as “a sacred dimension which celebrates, questions and perpetuates life.... I believe that life is not damnation but grace.”<br><br>Told through time shifts that echo Richard McGuire’s <i>Here</i>, <i>Misery of Love</i> is another ambitious, devastating masterpiece from one of France’s best contemporary graphic novelists.