The Comprehensive Graphic Novel Sheds Light on Congo’s History Not Widely Known to Western Readers
Featuring a Foreword from Historian and Professor of African History Didier Gondola
(October 24, 2022) Author and illustrator Edmund Trueman explores the fractious story of Congo in the comprehensive graphic history POSTCARDS FROM CONGO. Featuring a foreword by historian Didier Gondola, Professor of African History at John Hopkins University, POSTCARDS FROM CONGO brings Congo’s history — not widely known to Western readers — vividly alive through deft illustrations and storytelling. Readers see how Congolese musicians have spread their language across Africa by creating some of the most popular music on the continent, and how Congolese women have spent decades sidestepping sexist legislation to become leaders in local business. From resistance against colonialism to the fight for independence and the self-determination to make a life in an almost stateless place, Postcards from Congo depicts how the Congolese people have resisted and survived in order to take control of their lives and the country they call home.
The Democratic Republic of Congo, the second-largest country in Africa by area, has a fractured and bloody history, variously undone by decades of colonialism, civil war, corruption, and totalitarian rule. The country has played a crucial role in the economic growth of the Global North — but in doing so has suffered immensely. So many seminal advances in technology were possible only through the extraction of materials from Congo, from rubber to copper to uranium to coltan. In each case, the Congolese people paid a great price exacerbated by the weight of colonial exploitation and dictatorial rule.
POSTCARDS FROM CONGO will be published by Arsenal Pulp Press on October 25, 2022.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR
Edmund Trueman has been creating and self-publishing underground comics for the last decade. He has written from his own experience about topics ranging from the refugee crisis to the squatting movement. Postcards from Congo is his first long-form graphic non-fiction work, and his first work dealing with African history.
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Arsenal Pulp Press is a book publisher in Vancouver, Canada, with over 400 titles in print, which include literary fiction and non-fiction, books on social issues, gender studies, LGBTQ and diverse literature, graphic novels and non-fiction, cookbooks, alternative crafts, visual arts, and books in translation. Arsenal is interested in literature that engages and challenges readers, and asks probing questions about the world around us.
With a staff of five, located in the historic Vancouver district of Chinatown, Arsenal publishes between 14 and 20 new titles per year, as well as an average of 12 to 15 reprints. Their books are distributed in Canada, the U.S., Great Britain, Australia, and English-speaking Europe, and translations have appeared in China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, France, Spain, Italy, German, Turkey, and Brazil.
