Shenzhen (comics)

Shenzhen is a graphic novel about a stay in China, written and drawn by Canadian Guy Delisle. It first appeared in 2000 in France and was translated into several languages.

Content

The artist and animator Guy Delisle told in diary form of his daily life in the Chinese city and Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. For the animation studio Depuis he was transferred there in December 1997 for three months to coordinate and control the work of the studio in charge there. During this time he is confronted with the unfamiliar for him everyday Chinese life, the cultural differences and communication problems.

Publications

In 2000, the French publisher L'Association brought out the comic in France. In June 2006, a German translation appeared in reproduction. Drawn and Quarterly brought out an English translation.

Reception

In the reviews of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the comic is described as a success, with drawings that give even ugly things " a unique beauty " or act " light-hearted and self-deprecating ." Here, however, will always be the strangeness and loneliness significantly, with which the author was faced in China. The representation of a foreign culture is time, once perceived as unstereotyp as yet influenced by the Western perspective. Here, Delisle restrictive, so Christian Gasser, on observing and recording and leave the scoring to the reader.