Misery of Love

“Alagbé has set himself an impossibly high technical bar and then vaulted over it: Each page is two ink-wash panels, the majority of them without text, but somehow the characters emerge from his shades of gray with astonishing vibrancy… . Misery of Love is a sad, unusual, astounding story, built so solidly that its intricacies are invisible one minute and unavoidable the next.” —Sam Thielman, The New York Times“Alagbé shrouds his murky ink wash art in purposeful obscurity, with spectral human forms blurring into near-abstract compositions, like Gerhard Richter photo-paintings by way of Hugo Pratt. In haunted ellipses, Alagbé conjures an almost tactile sense of disquiet that isn’t easily shaken. It’s a stunning graphic novel counterpart to the obsessive fever dreams of Marguerite Duras and Claire Denis.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review“Misery of Love unfurls into a story about French colonialism, doomed romance and the long-lasting impacts of familial abuse, one so adroitly conveyed that its many interconnected climaxes converge to create one of the most affecting reading experiences I’ve had for many years.” —Séamas O’Reilly, Irish Times

Yvan Alagbe was born in Paris and spent three years of his youth in West Africa. He is a cofounder of the publishing house Amok, which later merged with the Belgian publishing group Freon to become Fremok, now a major European graphic novels publisher. He is the author of Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures. He teaches at Haute ecole des arts du Rhin in Strasbourg.

Donald Nicholson-Smith is a translator of French literature. He has translated works by writers such as Guy Debord, Henri Lefebvre, and Guillaume Apollinaire, as well as the noir fiction of Jean-Patrick Manchette and Thierry Jonquet. He is a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Born in Manchester, England, he lives in New York City.