Maltese-born US journalist Joe Sacco – best known for his ‘comic-book’ treatment of serious international issues, including the Middle East Peace Process and the Bosnian war – has turned his attention to the local immigration phenomenon for a forthcoming publication. In an interview with last Sunday’s The Observer (UK), Sacco revealed that he is currently working on “a 48-page comic for the Virginia Quarterly Review about African migrants who attempt to get into Europe via Malta.”
Sacco – who was born in Hal Kirkop in 1960, but emigrated to Australia (and later the USA) as a child – is the author of a number of critically acclaimed political comic-books, of which Palestine (1996) is arguably the most successful.
Described by leading orientalist Edward Said as “a political and aesthetic work of extraordinary originality”, Palestine is a collection of strips depicting Sacco’s travels and encounters with Palestinians (and several Israelis) in Gaza and the West Bank in the mid-1990s.
It was serialised as a comic book from 1993 to 2001 and then published in several collections, the first of which won an American Book Award in 1996.
More recently, Sacco won international critical acclaim with his Safe Area Goražde, a similarly pictorial account his experiences in the troubled Balkans during the Bosnian conflict.
Safe Area Goražde won the Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel in 2001, and earned Joe Sacco a Guggenheim fellowship, which helped him finance future projects – including his ongoing work on immigration through Malta, as well as a simultaneous project depicting life in Camden, New Jersey – America’s poorest town.
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
Download front page in pdf file format
All the interviews from Reporter on MaltaToday's YouTube channel.
In an interview with last Sunday’s The Observer (UK), Sacco revealed that he is currently working on “a 48-page comic for the Virginia Quarterly Review about African migrants who attempt to get into Europe via Malta.”
