#Bessora

[drjacquescoulardeau]

Bessora Prophétesse de l’À-venir Passé https://jacquescoulardeau.medium.com/bessora-proph%C3%A9tesse-de-l%C3%A0-venir-pass%C3%A9-d6029ebbd5ec

I just published Bessora Prophétesse de l’À-venir Passé. Entre l'avenir et le passé il y a un gazoduc qu'on aurait dit vénézuélien il y a trois-quatre ans, qu'on dit russe depuis un an et qu'on dira chinois dans un an, si on en croit le vieux Biden qui est en train de radoter depuis deux ans, d'abord en Afghanistan, avec raison dans ce cas (c'est à quoi servent les conseillers), et maintenant sans la moindre logique autre que guerrière, mais sans troupes, en Ukraine contre la Russie, et dans le Montana contre la Chine. Le ballon météo Biden est bidonnant. Il faudra une nouvelle loi sur la retraite pour se débarasser des vieillards quand ils n'ont plus de raison raisonnable. Allez, votons pour la retraite des polmitiques: à 62, 64, 65, 70 ans, ou plus? J'ai arrêté de travailler pour des institutions publiques à 65 ans, pour des institutions privées à 71 ans, et je n'ai toujours par arrêté en tant qu'indépendant. Mais j'ai encore quelques années avant de rejoindre le clan des Biden et des Trump. Xi est un bébé par rapport à eux, et même moi.

Éditions La Dondaine, Medium.com, 2023

[torontocomics]

DEBUTING AT TCAF 2019: ALPHA: ABIDJAN TO PARIS, BY BESSORA AND BARROUX

Published by Bellevue Literary Press. 128 Pages, B&W, US $24.99Doctors Without Borders Prize PEN Promotes Award GLLI (Global Literature in Libraries Initiative) Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal Longlist Library Journal “Best Book of the Year” selection School Library Journal “Best Adult Book 4 Teens” selection Comics Journal “Best Comic of the Year” selection“

Barroux’s raw illustrations and Bessora’s matter-of-fact text express the inhumanity at the heart of the refugee crisis.” 

―School Library Journal “Best Adult Book 4 Teens” citation

Alpha’s wife and son left Côte d’Ivoire months ago to join his sister-in-law in Paris, but Alpha has heard nothing from them since. With a visa, Alpha’s journey to reunite with his family would take a matter of hours. Without one, he is adrift for over a year, encountering human traffickers in the desert, refugee camps in northern Africa, overcrowded boats carrying migrants between the Canary Islands and Europe’s southern coast, and an unforgettable cast of fellow travelers lost and found along the way. Throughout, Alpha stays the course, carrying his loved ones’ photograph close to his heart as he makes his perilous trek across continents.

Featuring emotive, full-color artwork created in felt-tip pen and wash, Alpha is an international award–winning graphic novel supported by Amnesty International that received the PEN Promotes Award and Doctors Without Borders Prize, and was longlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. 

The U.S. edition is sponsored by Le Korsa, a nonprofit organization devoted to improving human lives in Senegal.

====================

Bessora is an award-winning author of Swiss, German, French, Polish, and Gabonese heritage, whose work has been anthologized in Best European Fiction and has received the Fénéon Prize and Grand Prix Littéraire d’Afrique Noire. Raised in Europe, America, and Africa, she has traveled extensively, and her fiction is underpinned by extensive research and her training as an anthropologist. Alpha is her first graphic novel. She lives in Paris.

Bessora attends TCAF in support of her recently released graphic novel ALPHA: Abidjan to Paris, created with illustrator Barroux. Her trip is supported by The French Embassy to Canada.

http://bessora.fr

[jamesmurualiterary]

Writers of African descent finalists on Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie 2021.

Writers of African descent finalists on Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie 2021.

Blaise Ndala, Marc Alexandre Oho Bambe, Bessora, and Emmelie Prophete are finalists of the Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie 2021 announced on October 21, 2021. Prix des Cinq Continents de la Francophonie (English: Five Continents Prize of the Francophonie) was established by the International Organization of the Francophonie in 2001. It is aimed at highlighting literary talents…

[mabith]

September reads! Bolds are favorites, strike throughs are dislikes.

How to Change Your Mind – Michael Pollan  -- Good, interesting, typical Pollan.

The Sickness – Alberto Barrera Tyszka -- Very good but bad for my mental health.

Poso Wells – Gabriela Aleman -- Too weird and wobbly for me.

Invisible Ink – Bill Griffith -- Didn’t feel like this went anywhere or took Griffith anywhere.

Mandarin On the Go Passport – Mango Languages -- This was an audio language course that I’m counting as a book because it was 25 hours long and I had to concentrate soo much harder than I do with audiobooks.

Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years – Elizabeth Wayland Barber -- Fab.

The Gift of Rain – Tan Twan Eng -- Such a disappointment compared to The Garden of Evening Mists.

My Individualism and the Philosophical Foundations of Literature – Natsume Soseki -- Deserves it’s own post. Soseki is a trip.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek – Kim Michele Richardson -- I really thought this was a terrible book. Not well written, messy, uncomfortable with the appropriation of racism.

Alpha – Bessora, Barroux

American Spy – Lauren Wilkinson -- Did not like as much as I expected to. Something about the pacing and feeling like our protag really wasn’t the center of any action.

Lenin – Victor Sebestyen -- Solid biography.

The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas -- Hard read, important book.

Bratislava Pressburg Pozsony – A. Robert Neurath -- Who’s who of Slovakian Jewish folks and their accomplishments.

Spring Flowers, Spring Frost – Ismail Kadare -- Excellent book. I love Kadare.

An Account of the Mutiny on the HMS Bounty – William Bligh -- Bligh isn’t a whiner, and I appreciate that. Read The Bounty by Caroline Alexander if you want the true (non-movie) version told in an exciting way.

Thrall: Poems – Natasha Tretheway -- Very very good collection.

The Graphic Canon of Children's Literature – Russ Kick (editor) -- Disappointing, largely not appropriate for children.

Exoplanets – Michael Summers, James Trefil -- Good. I think older folks write the best space books.

Showa: A History of Japan 1939-1944 – Shigeru Mizuki -- Good.

Gravity is the Thing – Jaclyn Moriarty -- Her first adult novel. Really loved her characters as usual, and the places the book goes. Maybe our narrator would seem too childish for some, but I related to her and I think a lot of older millenials would. Very realistic parenting passages.

Rat Queens Vol. 4 – Kurtis J. Wiebe -- Fun.

[clemymc-blog]

“The dust isn’t just in the streets, it has also settled in people’s hearts. The Congolese rumba blares out, but no one’s dancing.”

- Alpha by Bessora, Barroux (ISBN: 9781911370000)

[librarycomic]

Alpha: Abidjan to Paris by Bessora and illustrated by Barroux. Translated by Sarah Ardizzone. Bellevue Literary Pres, 2018. 9781942658405. 128pp.

Alpha Coulibaly, a cabinetmaker in the Ivory Coast, has had no news of his wife and child. He hopes they made it to Paris, and are at the home of his sister-in-law. But they didn’t have French visas, and neither does he, despite the fact that his grandfather fought for France in WWII. Knowing he might die before reaching Paris or finding his family, he sets out after them. His journey is difficult and expensive, long and dangerous, full of false promises and people who want to take what little he has.

The emotion of Barroux's simple art and layouts pulled me along on Alpha’s journey. This book stands out, along with Don Brown’s The Unwanted, from other graphic novels about the current refugee crisis.

[booksfromtheunderground]

petroleum de bessora (2004)

Petroleum est l’une des rares fictions contemporaines sur laquelle je ne peux me faire un avis tranché. La littérarité, pour une fois, est au rendez-vous ; cependant, la façon dont le récit est mené n’a cessée de me rebuter, et si quelques passages étaient de ceux que l’on relit avec plaisir, d’autres laissent une trace amère sur la page. 

Roman écopoétique, centré (en tout cas, c’est ce que l’autrice nous laisse croire) sur l'économie pétrolière, l’on est aussi face à un roman du passé colonial gabonais comme de son présent, non moins colonial, puisque ce dernier conserve les traces d’un racisme à peine dissimulé. Cependant, c’est en-dehors de ces thématiques politico-économiques que réside, selon moi, la véritable force de cet ouvrage ; c’est dans le croisement de cultures qui, en apparence, restent drastiquement éloignées ; c’est dans sa symbiose mythique et mythologique, dans son penchant vers le surnaturel, dans ses indices, finalement, d’un monde au-delà (voire au-dessus) du capitalisme mondialisé. 

Ce que je reproche à Bessora, c’est sa plume très (trop ?) contemporaine, la lourdeur de sa métaphore sexuelle qui, filée tout au long du roman, reste trop peu subtile pour nous permettre de nous engager dans ce récit d’enquête. À côté de ces histoires mythiques nées au Gabon, de ces rappels vers la mythologie grecque de l’Antiquité, certains passages font presque “tâche.” Parce que, à mes yeux, écrire que “c’est quand le clitoris est chaud qu’il faut le battre”, pardonnez-moi mais ça montre bien que l’on nous en dit trop.

Pourtant, à côté de ces longueurs, lourdeurs et autres moiteurs, Petroleum est loin de rejoindre le banc de ses contemporains, fictions plates et sans goût que l’on nous sert constamment. Sa polyphonie donne de la matière à ce qui pourrait n’être qu’une simple enquête policière au Gabon, en pleine explosion pétrolière ; elle permet, surtout, quelques discrètes (mais bien présentes) divagations métaphysiques, nous laissant entrevoir toutes les possibilités d’extension de cet ouvrage. 

« C’en devient douloureux. Son cœur se serre et dans sa gorge pousse une boule de chagrin. Il y a la baie où flottent d’immenses radeaux de grumes. Il y a la wharf où se décompose une vieille station d’essence. Il y a une femme qui sort d’une pharmacie. Une entente secrète semble les unir. Ils participent d’une même harmonie discordante. Un étrange matériau soude l’eau qui clapote au bois qui se mouille, et à l’homme qui marche sur le radeau. Et cette femme qui monte dans une Lada Niva s’accorde à cet avion qui vient peut-être de survoler l’Ocean Liberator. [...] Cette soudure confond tous les temps. »

S’il me fallait conclure, je dirais donc que Petroleum n’est pas la pire fiction contemporaine à laquelle j’ai eu affaire ; et si elle garde les défauts du genre, elle sait aussi se nourrir d’ailleurs afin d’adresser la question, constamment revue mais aujourd'hui brûlante, du débat éternel entre nature et culture, colonisant et colonisé, sacrifice et salut, passion et poison. 

« — La clé est dans le temps, dit-elle. Ce qui s’est passé sur le navire, c’est... C’est la mémoire que vous devez questionner. »

[alexdecampi]

@skellyskellyskelly, Audrey Niffenegger, Eddie Campbell and I will be talking romance comics (and everything else under the sun) next Sunday at 2pm, followed by a signing! Brooklyn Book Festival is the coolest book festival in New York, very chill and accessible but with top writers. I love it and am so glad to have been invited back! #Repost @bkbookfest with @get_repost ・・・ Get your comics fix at #BKBF! This year, the Brooklyn Book Festival’s programming will feature panels with ...⠀ ⠀ 🎨 Caldecott Award-winning illustrator/author David Small (Home After Dark), The New Yorker cartoonist Liana Finck (Passing for Human), and anthropologist Bessora (Alpha) on refugees, outcasts, inheritors of hard history; ⠀ ⠀ 📺 Michael Kupperman (All The Answers), Box Brown (Is This Guy for Real?), and Rina Ayuyang (Blame This on the Boogie) on television and celebrity with adulthood and reality; ⠀ ⠀ 🌹 Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell (Bizarre Romance), Alex DeCampi and Katie Skelly (Twisted Romance) on weird romance and speculative fiction;⠀ ⠀ 🌆 Julia Wertz (designer of this year's art poster) will join Peter J. Tomasi (The Bridge), and Jason Lutes (Berlin) to discuss the graphic city;⠀ ⠀ 🌟 Ed Piskor (X-Men: Grand Design), Kwanza Osajyefo (Black), and Sheena Howard (Superb) will discuss the new superhero;⠀ ⠀ 💫 Acclaimed YA authors Hope Larsen (All Summer Long), Jen Wang (The Prince and the Dressmaker), and Tim Fielder (Matty’s Rocket) rise to the challenge with stories of summer rebellion, a gender-bending royal conspiracy, and an African-American Flash Gordon.⠀ ⠀ CHECK OUT THE PROGRAMS VIA LINK IN BIO!⠀ ⠀ #brooklynbookfestival #bookfestival #brooklyn #graphicnovels #comics #illustration #cartoon #cartoonist #illustrator #graphicdesign https://www.instagram.com/p/Bnb50L_H09s/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=z9xt8orue1x6

[gaboninfoslive]

Gabon: Une réunion de préparation pour le futur FILIGA

Gabon: Une réunion de préparation pour le futur FILIGA

C’est déjà officiel, le Festival International du Livre Gabonais et des Arts (FILIGA) se tiendra du 25 au 27 mai 2022 au Musée National des Arts, Rites et Traditions du GABON à Libreville. La franco-gabonaise Sandrine Bessora Nan Nguema est annoncée, de même qu’une délégation de la Guinée-Conakry invitée d’honneur du Festival. Aussi, le Comité d’organisation du FILIGA s’est réunit, samedi 12…

[bookriot]

I figured out how to write this post when I was at Pop-Up Lab 2017, listening to the author and translator of  Alpha talk about their book. As they spoke, Bessora, the author, said this:

“We are all somebodies, not nobodies” – Bessora.

Children’s books allow you to find that somebody. They offer you the opportunity to ask questions that might not have easy answers—or indeed, any answers at all. Realising that is hard. Admitting that to a child is even harder. Books like the ones I’m going to recommend here allow you to bridge that gap and start that conversation.

https://bookriot.com/2018/01/04/childrens-books-refugees/

[smithlibrary]

Read More 2020 Immigrant Experiences A book about a person building a life in a new country (fiction or nonfiction)

Biography A Dream Called Home by Reyna Grande Alexander Hamilton by Richard Sylla Call Me American by Abdi Nor Iftin An American Family by Khizr Khan The Immortal Irishman by Timothy Egan

Non-Fiction "They take our jobs!" by Aviva Chomsky Detained and Deported by Margaret Regan Hunting Season by Mirta A. Ojito  97 Orchard by Jane Ziegelman

Classic My Ántonia by Willa Cather

Fiction How the García Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez Brother by David Chariandy The Wangs vs. The World by Jade Chang Little Bee by Chris Cleave Dancing with Butterflies by Reyna Grande The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman Bridge of Scarlet Leaves by Kristina McMorris The Hundred-foot Journey by Richard C. Morais The Queen of the Big Time by Adriana Trigiani 

Graphic Novel Alpha: Abidjan to Paris by Bessora The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui

Romance The Immigrant Brides Collection

Young Adult Americanized by Sara Saedi Anya's Ghost by Brosgol Vera Illegal by Eoin Colfer Ink Knows No Borders 

[tashrow]

2019 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist

2019 GLLI Translated YA Book Prize Shortlist

The Global Literature in Libraries Initiative has announced the shortlist for their inaugural Translated YA Book Prize. Works published within the last three years were considered for the prize that honors books in English translation for young adult readers. Here are the shortlisted titles:

Alpha by Bessora and Barroux

Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan

Defying the Nazis: The Life of German…

[kevinmcwho]

ALPHA: Abidjan to Paris, -a graphic novel

ALPHA: Abidjan to Paris, -a compelling graphic novel

The landscape of graphic novels is as vast as the Sahara. ALPHA follows an African refugee on a tortuous journey across that very desert. The story is by Bessora, a French author of African and European ancestry. French illustrator Barroux’s  lush ink wash drawings bring an immediacy to the journey.

Alpha, a carpenter, is compelled to migrate North. He leaves his home in Cote D’Ivoire. There is…

[victorsantamariablr]

[Victor Santa Maria] Un viaje de meses para regresar en unas horas

La escritora francesa Bessora y el dibujante Barroux publican una historia de migración y desesperanza de Costa de Marfil a París Victor Santa Maria via Noticias sobre Medio ambiente http://ift.tt/2rCX4wB

[clemymc-blog]

“I’m tired. I’m going crazy. But as long as I’m not dead, I’ll get out of Mali in the end.”

- Alpha by Bessora, Barroux (ISBN: 9781911370000)

[tonimarinvila]

Abidjan to Gare du Nord: Alpha, an immigration graphic novel – in pictures

Abidjan to Gare du Nord: Alpha, an immigration graphic novel – in pictures

All illustrations by Barroux

French author and illustrator double act Bessora and Barroux share their new graphic novel Alpha, the story of a migrant desperately searching for his family

Captions by Bessora and illustrations by Barroux

Thursday 11 August 2016 08.00 BSTLast modified on Thursday 2 February 2017 15.12 GMT

“My name is Alpha, like Alpha Blondy, the singer. But I’m not a…