On sale date: September 3, 2024
The landmark work of comics journalism by Joe Sacco, in a new hardcover edition with a new afterword by Israeli journalist Amira Hass and an introduction by Palestinian American author and critic Edward Said.
Joe Sacco's breakthrough work of graphic journalism — a now-established genre almost single handedly invented by Sacco — won the American Book Award upon its initial release in 1996, and has remained a perennial, essential work for understanding the Palestinian Israeli conflict in the Middle East. This new hardcover edition includes a new afterword by Israeli journalist Amira Hass and also features Palestinian academic and critic Edward Said’s timeless 2001 introduction to the work.
Based on several years of research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s, where he conducted over 100 interviews with Palestinians and Jews, Palestine was the first major comics work of political and historical nonfiction by Sacco, whose name has since become synonymous with this graphic form of New Journalism. Like Safe Area Gorazde, Palestine has been favorably compared to Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus for its ability to brilliantly navigate such socially and politically sensitive subject matter through the immersive lens of the comic book medium. Sacco has often been called the first comic book journalist, and he is certainly the best.
Praise
"With the exception of one or two novelists and poets, no one has ever rendered this terrible state of affairs better than Joe Sacco." — Edward W. Said
"In Joe Sacco's Palestine, the autobiographical comic book reaches beyond everyday trivia to embrace the travel documentary. Utilizing a masterful array of visual devices and employing consummate draftsmanship, Sacco details life in the Occupied Territories with sensitivity, insight, and a fine eye for moral ambiguities. Highly recommended." — Alan Moore
"Sacco's detailed landscapes and expressionistic drawing style capture the horror and desperation of the occupation, made even more poignant in light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza." — Publishers Weekly
"Sacco uses the comic book format to its fullest extent, creating bold perspectives that any photojournalist would envy." — Utne Reader
"If I had to choose one word to describe Palestine, it would be "dynamic." Images and words jostle for space on crowded pages as if each has something to say which simply cannot be delayed or left unexpressed, and the artist's constantly changing perspective creates a sense of restlessness and a feeling that there is no peace to be found in this small territory." — The Arts STL
Specs
- Pages
- 300
- Format
- Hardback
- Color
- Black and white.
- Dimensions
- 7.5" × 11.1"
- ISBN-13
- 9798875000003