Jerusalem, Berlin, and Year of the Rabbit included in graphic novels that chronicle history of great cities

Phnom Penh: Year of the Rabbit by Tian Veasna

One of the most important things to understand about the shaping of Cambodian culture doesn’t revolve around the presence of its magnificent Angkor Wat, but the bloody history involving the Khmer Rouge. Its reign was responsible for the murder of approximately 2 million people between 1975 and 1979, and this powerful, personal story bears eloquent witness to that dark period. Veasna was born into that world and watched the damage it inflicted not just upon his immediate family but on everyone he grew up with. There is sadness in these pages, but also humour and hope. The panels are spare, but what they depict speaks volumes.

Jerusalem: Jerusalem by Guy Delisle

The nicest thing Guy Delisle does when he travels the world armed with notepad and pen is what every seasoned journalist is trained to do: take notice. He doesn’t comment or interject personal opinions on anything and lets the setting, conversation or event he is chronicling do the heavy lifting. Often, it is simply while recording the everyday life and times of a place that he raises the biggest questions. This is a great book about one of the world’s most interesting cities and the various claims that have been made upon it for eons. Part travelogue, part memoir, it is an account of a year well spent.

Berlin by Jason Lutes

The most astonishing thing about this book isn’t that it took two decades to create, it is that Jason Lutes had never visited Berlin before he began working on it. The period he chose to focus on is one that shaped the world we currently live in—the last years of the Weimar Republic and the terrifying dawn of Nazism. Lutes doesn’t simply give us a history lesson; he creates a world and populates it with characters we can all relate to, using their experiences to take us deep into the heart of what it meant to be German between 1929 and 1933. What it leaves the reader with is a sense of disquiet, as uncanny parallels between that Berlin and today’s United States start to emerge.

Read the rest of the article at the link above.