Literally Graphic reviewed Drawn to Berlin by Ali Fitzgerald
Review of Drawn to Berlin
4 stars
Content notes for drowning, trauma, racism, nudity, and swastikas.
What kinds of keywords came to mind reading Drawn to Berlin? Line, typography, history, refugees, and place.
The summary is "Fitzgerald’s graphic memoir entwines political and personal displacement. Ali Fitzgerald is an artist trying to find herself in a rapidly changing city facing an influx of asylum seekers. In Berlin, she teaches an art class to displaced people who have traveled from war-torn countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. Given Fitzgerald’s encouragement, her students take pen in hand and express their painful memories of home and cautious optimism about their new life. Revealing the humanity behind the politics of immigration, Drawn to Berlin is about loss, community, and the art that binds people together. Black & white illustrations throughout."
My one note is that, to her credit, I did feel like Ali centered herself a lot less then this summary would …
Content notes for drowning, trauma, racism, nudity, and swastikas.
What kinds of keywords came to mind reading Drawn to Berlin? Line, typography, history, refugees, and place.
The summary is "Fitzgerald’s graphic memoir entwines political and personal displacement. Ali Fitzgerald is an artist trying to find herself in a rapidly changing city facing an influx of asylum seekers. In Berlin, she teaches an art class to displaced people who have traveled from war-torn countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. Given Fitzgerald’s encouragement, her students take pen in hand and express their painful memories of home and cautious optimism about their new life. Revealing the humanity behind the politics of immigration, Drawn to Berlin is about loss, community, and the art that binds people together. Black & white illustrations throughout."
My one note is that, to her credit, I did feel like Ali centered herself a lot less then this summary would necessarily imply. At least to me. This is certainly an outsider looking in sort of story and Ali does not shy away from including herself in the story in a way that clearly explains her perspective, but in my opinion at least Ali does a decent job of balancing her life, the lives of the people she works with, and larger themes about belonging in Berlin - both in the past and in that present.
Other autobiographical facts about Ali include she now lives outside of Paris; she contributes comics to a number of magazines; she's queer; and she describes Drawn to Berlin as Surreal Nonfiction.
Looking at the artwork, as always I'm pretty biased towards finely crafted and dramatic black and white art. Plus, the use of line was pretty distinct.
Looking at the intersections of identity as we always do...
One of the strengths of the volume in my opinion is that Ali does include a pretty wide variety of people.
People of many races, classes and sexualities have all come to Berlin throughout its history. There's discussion of the economic exploitation of undocumented people. The history and present of violent fascism and it's propaganda.
Gender felt a little less explored, although a diversity of the binary is present... Disability felt the least explored.
To conclude... it took me a little too long perhaps to get to this book as things continue to only get worse. Four stars.