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“I am Marzi, born in 1979, ten years before the end of communism in Poland. My father works at a factory, my mother at a dairy. Social problems are at their height. Empty stores are our daily bread.I’m scared of spiders and the world of adults doesn’t seem like a walk in the park.”
Told from a young girl’s perspective, Marzena Sowa’s memoir of a childhood shaped by politics feels remarkably fresh and immediate. Structured as a series of vignettes that build on one another, MARZI is a compelling and powerful coming-of-age story that portrays the harsh realities of life behind the Iron Curtain while maintaining the everyday wonders and curiosity of childhood. With open and engaging art by Sylvain Savoia, MARZI is a moving and resonant story of an ordinary girl in turbulent, changing times.
- Sales Rank: #621569 in Books
- Brand: DC Comics
- Published on: 2011-10-25
- Released on: 2011-10-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 10.20" h x .70" w x 8.00" l, 1.36 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
Amazon.com Review
Marzena Sowa on Marzi
I landed in the world of comics somewhat by chance.
I had studied literature, and I always dreamed of writing, but I never imagined I’d become a comic book author. It’s all thanks to Sylvain. Before meeting him, I didn’t really read comics (I must have read Tarzan when I was 13, and my next comic book was Blue Pills by Frederik Peeters when I was 23).
Stupidly, I believed that comics were for children, for men who refused to grow up or for people who didn’t like to read very much. In Poland, where I was born, no one tried to change my mind. There, during my childhood, comics were a marginal art form. Thanks to Sylvain, I plunged into comics not only as a reader but almost simultaneously as an author. The Marzi adventure started in 2005.
In the beginning, I struggled with my role. I was always hiding behind Sylvain who had an established career as a comics artist. He’s the one who carried Marzi on his shoulders for several years. But little by little, with the publication of each new volume, I learned (and I’m still learning) to better manage my work as scriptwriter, and my place in this world became more stable. I began to understand the importance of my work. It wasn’t by chance. Not anymore. And I didn’t want to be the author of only one comic book.
One day, I met a Polish illustrator: Krzysztof Gawronkiewicz. I liked his drawings a lot, and I wanted to work with him. At the time, I was in the midst of reading the poems of a Polish poet who wrote about the war. A few of them referenced the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
This uprising is often confused with the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto in 1943. It was the last hope, the last attempt--powerful and at the same time desperate--of the Polish people to regain their freedom from the Nazis. It was expected to last 4 or 5 days, but it ended after 63 days. It was a true death knell to Warsaw. The Red Army had arrived on the outskirts of the city, and halted near the Vistula River, waiting for the Germans and the Poles to kill each other. Then, they arrived as the victor in the lifeless capital, and established communism. The Russians, thanks to their non-intervention, kept that historic event in the shadows (and made sure it stayed there) which is why it barely exists in Western minds.
The uprising isn’t an easy topic. It’s vast and has always stirred up a number of controversies about its meaning. But it’s a real-life story that needs to be told, and it will be the subject of my next comic, working with Kryzsztof. It’s a huge job for us and a terrific challenge that we have thrown ourselves into with great enthusiasm.
I don’t know if, working on another project that once again takes the history of Poland as its subject, I run the risk of being categorized as a Polish author, but at the same time, I know I have many other stories in my bottom drawer that aren’t necessarily about Poland, but in which no doubt my Polish sensibility, my Polishness, shines through. It’s something I’ll never escape, but I also don’t want to escape it. It’s where I find my strength. And for me, for now, it feels vital to write about my country.
About the Author
Marzena Sowa was born in Stalowa Wola, Poland. As a young girl she dreamt about living in France, free from communist rule. Marzi is her first graphic novel created in collaboration with artist and partner Sylvain Savoia..
Most helpful customer reviews
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
There's a lot to love about Marzi, and a lot to loathe about Vertigo's mucking around with this English edition...
By S. M. Robare
I was excited to get a chance to read the DC Comics Vertigo English release of the Belgian comic Marzi, which was originally published as short stories in the pages of Spirou Magazine. Marzi follows the autobiographical adventures of Marzena Sowa as she grew up and came of age in 80s era communist Poland. This first English language volume combines the first four Belgian collections (Petite Carp, Sur la terre comme au ciel, Rezystor, and Le bruit des villes), written by Sowa and illustrated by her partner Sylvain Savoia.
Getting a chance to peek behind the iron curtain and to see what Polish life was like was fascinating, particularly because it illustrated how normal the day to day really was. There are a lot of interesting shorts, like what it was like preparing for the Christmas dinner by keeping a live Carp in the bathtub for a few days, or the routine of waiting in lines for grocery staples. But what surprised me the most was the overall tone of the stories and how honestly Sowa presents herself as sort of a bratty spoiled child. Simply judging from the cover illustration, which features a young scowling Marzi awkwardly manhandling a plush bunny, tiny amongst a sea of Polish soldiers in riot gear, you get the impression that this would be a darker memoir about the struggle and hardships of life. While this is certainly a part of the backdrop to the story, it's actually more upbeat and a tad whiney. The cover illustration is actually a reworking of the cover to the second Belgian collection (Sur la terre comme au ciel - On the Ground as with the Sky), which features a more quizzical and curious Marzi. I'm wondering if the folks at Vertigo might be getting a little bit underhanded with their marketing.
Similarly, this English volume contains a complete re-coloring of the original comics. The Belgian editions were very vibrant and whimsical in tone, whereas this new volume is upping the tone of hardship behind the curtain by rendering the pages in drab browns and dull reds. It's almost as if they pulled their monochromatic color scheme from the scenes of the girl in the little red dress from Schindler's List trying to make the work more heavy and dramatic than it really is. I found this heavy-handed marketing distracting, but the content of the stories still manages to shine through.
Overall my favorite aspect of Marzi: a memoir are Savoia's illustrations. His style is much in the vein of Jeff Smith, which features the beautiful juxtaposition between realistic and exaggeratedly cartoon-y renderings. This duality in the artwork combined with the coming of age stories evokes the work of Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes at times, yet still manages to feel completely like it's own work. I think fans of auto-bio comics, in particular strip comics, will find a lot to enjoy in Marzi. I just wish the translation of the comic ended with the text, instead of co-opting the tone as well.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Wonderful graphic memoir of childhood in Poland as it became free
By Man in the Middle
I love graphic books, but have never seen one I enjoyed more than "Marzi." Having lived through the era of her childhood, I thought I already knew something about what was going on then in Poland. But really, I didn't, and this memoir was both highly-enjoyable and very educational about life there during the fall of communism and rise of freedom.
The book is also for me (a guy) an excellent introduction to what it was like for a young girl to grow up poor in turbulent times, and very honest about both the good and bad ways she coped with her challenges. Overall, Marzi is a person I'd really like to have as a friend, and a wonderfu ambassador for her country and culture.
The artwork added quite a lot to my enjoyment of the book.
This would be a great book to read together with kids, but isn't only for kids. It touches on some tough topics, but gently and respectfully.
Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Interesting Vignettes on Communist Poland
By Becky at "One Literature Nut"
Let me just say how much I loved little Marzi. Her character is sweet, charming, and vulnerable, with a healthy dose of insecurity brought on by the culture of her environment and a mother who seemed to feel she had to bring Marzi up with an iron first. Marzi was just a normal little girl, watching as her parents stood in line for simple food staples, went to school with friends who had goods her family seemingly couldn't afford, and spent time with her country relatives, learning to store up food for leaner times. Marzi's life is what is not normal. Although she is a little girl who wants to play, to learn new things, and to have her own puppy, the world she lives in is much too oppressive for a little girl to really understand. Through her eyes, we really get to see how scary and challenging it was for the people of Poland to negotiate these last days under communist rule.
Overall, I really did enjoy this graphic novel. The version I had was a little over 200 pages long, and with the vignettes, it made it hard to stick with the novel in one sitting. I found myself coming back to it, to read a few stories at a time. One part of the story that I found especially interesting was the section after the accident in Chernobyl. Although it was far away, the affect of the radioactive cloud that traveled to Marzi's town in Poland was huge! The fears they had over the rain, the food, and even their animals sent a country already suffering for food and work into a greater tailspin. I don't know that I'd ever considered the dramatic affect this event had on other nations, but we really do get a good first-hand account from little Marzi.
On the whole, this was a good graphic novel that I could see being used to help explain more about Poland's modern history and about communism. Honestly, it has made me want to learn more about the author today and her thoughts on these events as an adult. Not a short read, but a good one!
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