Graphic novel Marc Legendre features on Words Without Borders

Traditionally, in its February issue the online magazine for international literature Words Without Borders celebrates graphic novels. Among the fragments are the first 20 pages of 'Waiting for an Island' by de Flemish comics artist Marc Legendre, translated into English by David Colmer, with the support of the Flemish Literature Fund.

Marc Legendre_Wachten op een eilandMarc Legendre lives and works on El Hierro, one of the Canary Islands, which forms the setting for ‘Waiting for an Island'. For thirty years, Adan Diss has been waiting for San Borondón, a mythical island that appears on the horizon every once in a while. He used to have his whole life ahead of him. He could have been a butcher or a doctor, but he chose to become nothing. He believes patience is all he needs to find happiness.

 

The author makes clever use of Photoshop and demonstrates his ability to create believable characters, however bizarre they might be. He plays with shape and colour and, more than ever before, searches for effects in the artistic reproduction of his reality. Combined with the subsequent introduction of clear lines, this results in a vivid, compelling and heartrendingly beautiful story.

 

> Read the translation at http://wordswithoutborders.org/graphic-lit/from-waiting-for-an-island/

 

 

published on: 2010-02-03

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