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Book Cover for: The Property, Rutu Modan

The Property

Rutu Modan

Winner:Will Eisner Comic Industry Award -Graphic Album-New (2014)

INCLUDED ON MORE THAN TEN BEST OF THE YEAR LISTS, INCLUDING THE GUARDIAN, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, SALON, AMAZON, AND THE WASHINGTON POST!

"Modan delights in bringing the subtlest emotional shadings to vivid and often comical life on the page...[The Property is a] wryly funny and ultimately wrenching graphic novel." -NPR

The award-winning author of Exit Wounds returns with a story about secrets, money, and the bonds of love

The Property is a work that will inspire, fascinate, and delight readers and critics alike. Savvy and insightful, elegant and subtle, Rutu Modan's second full-length graphic novel is a triumph of storytelling and fine lines.

After the death of her son, Regina Segal takes her granddaughter Mica to Warsaw, hoping to reclaim a family property lost during the Second World War. As they get to know modern Warsaw, Regina is forced to recall difficult things about her past, and Mica begins to wonder if maybe their reasons for coming aren't a little different than what her grandmother led her to believe.

Modan offers up a world populated by prickly seniors, smart-alecky public servants, and stubborn women-a world whose realism is expressed alternately in the absurdity of people's behavior and in the complex consequences of their sacrifices. Modan's ever-present wit is articulated perfectly in her clear-line style, while a subtle, almost muted color palette complements the true-to-life nuances of her characterization. Exit Wounds made a huge splash for this signature combination of wit, style, and realism, and The Property will cement Modan's status as one of the foremost cartoonists working today.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
  • Publish Date: May 14th, 2013
  • Pages: 232
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.91in - 7.14in - 0.92in - 1.54lb
  • EAN: 9781770461154
  • Categories: Literary

About the Author

Modan, Rutu: - Rutu Modan is an Illustrator, comics artist, and associate professor at the Bezalel Academy of Art & Design in Jerusalem. After publishing several comic strips in the Israeli media, Modan co-founded the Actus Comics group. In 2008 her book Exit Wounds won the Eisner Award. Her 2013 graphic novel The Property won the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel, the Special Jury Prize in the International Comics Festival in Angouleme, France, and the first prize for best book of the year in Lucca Comics & Games Festival, Italy. Modan's comics and children's books have been translated into 15 languages. In 2013 she cofounded an independent publishing house specialising in comics for young children.

Praise for this book

"Modan is masterful at creating complex motivations, exploring the confusion her characters create in each other and, more fundamentally, in themselves." --Los Angeles Times

"My comic book of the year, by a mile, is Rutu Modan's The Property... in which Mica Segal, a young Israeli woman, travels to Warsaw with her irascible grandmother to help her reclaim the apartment building she and her family were forced to give up in 1940...This, believe me, has everything you could possibly want in a comic: great pictures, a multilayered story, mystery, sharp wit." --The Guardian's Graphic Books of the Year

"What The Property most resembles is an excellent independent film, full of nuanced performances and funny lines... Modan's artwork is lovely and understated; it's the cleverness of her storytelling that shines brightest here." --Salon.com's Unforgettable Graphic Novels of 2013

"Modan's clear line art delineates the complex web of loves, lies, and invented pasts. This beautifully realized narrative shows how history shapes us but cannot destroy us." --Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2013