Issue: September 15, 2010
Cuba: My Revolution.
Lockpez, Inverna (Author) , Haspiel, Dean (Illustrator), Villarrubia, Jose (Illustrator)
Sep 2010. 144 p. Vertigo, hardcover, $24.99. (9781401222178). 741.5.
This graphic-novel memoir depicts one young woman’s changing political views as a middle-class Cuban artist who came of age during Castro’s revolution. Sonya experiences the excitement of Batista’s overthrow, shortages in the medical clinic where she works, the early thrill and later torture of army life, her own willingness to create dissident art, and a couple of well-depicted affairs of the heart. Concise text and stylish art combine to make the whole both accessible and moving: Sonya, her parents and friends, her dying lover, and her new husband—as well as protesters, Castro’s commanders, and astute neighbors—are all well realized in both image and action and come to life on pages that flow with carefully and creatively designed panels. This is sound political fiction, with a definite point of view but without an axe to grind.
Teens interested in the Cuban revolution will also find the book to be essential and accessible reading about life during that time.
— Francisca Goldsmith