ALPHA

This graphic novel from author Bessora, illustrator Barroux (How
Many Trees?, 2019, etc.), and translator Ardizzone follows a migrant’s
arduous journey from West Africa to Europe.

Alpha is a cabinetmaker in the Ivory Coast who wants to take his
family to visit his sister-in-law in Paris, but he runs into a mountain of red
tape when applying for a visa. “When you leave the consulate, one thing’s for
sure—you understand that Côte d’Ivoire loves France more than France loves Côte
d’Ivoire,” explains Alpha, before wryly adding, “But, seeing as Côte d’Ivoire
doesn’t love its own people very much either, Ivorians still flee for Europe.”
So Alpha goes into debt to pay a smuggler to start his wife and son on their
journey to France. Six months later, Alpha sells his cabinet shop to pay yet
another smuggler in hopes of following his family’s path. The book has the
appearance of a photo album, most pages presenting a stack of two equal-sized,
rectangular images with a short paragraph of Alpha’s deeply human narration
beneath each illustration, documenting his journey. As Alpha quickly learns,
the road out of Africa is beset with con men, drunken soldiers, endless dusty
desert, and death—but also kindred spirits. Barroux’s illustrations have a
deceptively simple quality, with heavy lines and people with dots for eyes and
bulbous, shiny noses; that simplicity makes an ill migrant’s hollow stare or
the stiff joints of a body left to rot all the more haunting. Bessora is a
fiction writer whose work “is underpinned by extensive research,” according to
the author bio, though the origin of this story is unspecified. It is a
compelling tale, though major events transpire in the text-only epilogue, which
is delivered by an omniscient narrator rather than Alpha, robbing the
conclusion of some of its heft.

Heartbreaking and timely.