Where will Nadege work next? We can look forward to a new Delisle book from there.

[him] moderator

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Comics

I have just finished Guy Delisle's Chroniques Birmaines in French, although the English translation is now out and available in bookstores under the title Burma Chronicles. The book is a series of vignettes detailing daily life under one of the most strange and brutal regimes in the world. As far as niches go, Delisle's got the graphic-diary-in-a-dictatorship all locked up. I can't think of any other cartoonist, excepting Joe Sacco, who so consistently tackles international problem states with such ease. Chroniques is his third book about life in a dictatoship, following Pyongyang, set in North Korea, and Shenzen, set in China. Part of Delisle's penchant for such subject matter is that Delisle's wife Nadege is an administrator for Medecins Sans Frontieres, and so he ends up spending a lot of time in terrible places, places that most cartoonists don't visit.

But the larger part of his work's success is due to his eye for detail, in both his drawings and his subject matter, turning his novels into fine works of visual reportage. An example of this is the story he recounts midway through Chroniques, after he's been in Burma in few months. (The country is also known as Myanmar in the UN, but not formally recognized as Myanmar by many UN members protesting the regime.) Rumours that the ruling generals were planning to move the capital prove to be true, when one day, without warning, they begin to pack up and go. Bureaucrats are given 24 hours notice to leave the capital and if they refuse, they'll be thrown in jail. The capital itself is moved from Rangoun to town still under construction in the middle of nowhere, a place without water or electricity, and apparently tons of snakes. Bureaucrats sleep under their desks while housing is built. But the best part, the cream on the top of the ridiculous sundae, is that the generals refuse to give the name of the new capital, claiming it is a defense secret. It is then named, and then renamed, ending up as Nay Pyi Daw, meaning "The Residence of the King."

Another story that seems paranoid in the extreme revolves around a journalist friend of Delisle, who visits him in Burma then writes a story in France criticizing the regime and mentioning Delisle and his drawings. One of Delisle's animation students works for the government and is concerned that agents in the Burman embassy in France will see the article, link the student to Delisle and toss said student in jail for 10 years. In a panic, Delisle burns all his copies of the magazine in Burma and spends the next few days calling around to see how likely it is the story will be read, until he is assured by an unidentified ambassador that the Burmans in France likely can't even speak French. "One of the benefits of corruption," the ambassador remarks dryly.

Delisle and family leave Burma after a year and bit due to MSF's withdrawal from Burma because of the increasingly ridiculous restrictions placed upon aid organizations in that country, including visa renewals every month. Delisle captures the bittersweet moments of his departure, such as his final farewell to his animation students after a boozy night, knowing he will never seem them again. He thinks back to a mother and child he saw in a clinic for HIV/AIDS patients one morning and returns the following day to ask about them, only to discover there are so many women and children that go through the clinic doors the aid workers have already forgotten the two he's asking about. It is those small details which make the book so strong. As a work of comic art, the book is fine, but as work of literature and global analysis, Chroniques Birmaines deserves to stand alongside other serious books in the politics section of your nearest bookstore.

http://abeetv.blogspot.com/2008/11/comics.html