''Footnotes in Gaza'' is a
journalistic
Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...
graphic narrative In comics studies, sequential art is a term proposed by comics artist Will EisnerWill Eisner, ''Comics and Sequential Art'', Poorhouse Press, 1990 (1st ed.: 1985), p. 5. to describe art forms that use images deployed in a specific order for the pur ...
by
Joe Sacco
Joe Sacco (; born October 2, 1960) is a Maltese-American cartoonist and journalist. He is best known for his comics journalism, in particular in the books '' Palestine'' (1996) and '' Footnotes in Gaza'' (2009), on Israeli–Palestinian rela ...
about bloody incidents between Israelis and Paletinians in Gaza during the
Suez Crisis. It was published in 2009 by
Henry Holt and Company in the U.S. and
Jonathan Cape in the UK.
The book describes the author's quest to get to the bottom of what happened in
Khan Yunis
Khan Yunis ( ar, خان يونس, also spelled Khan Younis or Khan Yunus; translation: ''Caravansary fJonah'') is a city in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Khan Yunis had a population of 142,6 ...
and in
Rafah
Rafah ( ar, رفح, Rafaḥ) is a Palestinian city in the southern Gaza Strip. It is the district capital of the Rafah Governorate, located south of Gaza City. Rafah's population of 152,950 (2014) is overwhelmingly made up of former Palestini ...
in
Gaza in November 1956. According to
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...
figures quoted in the book, Israeli forces killed 275
Palestinians in
Khan Yunis on 3 November 1956 and 111 in
Rafah on 12 November 1956.
[Hass, Amira.]
"A thin black line,"
'' Haaretz'' (Nov. 2, 2010).
Sacco bases his book on conversations with Palestinians in Rafah and the neighbouring town of Khan Younis, and interweaves the events of 1956 with the events in Rafah at the time of the interviews—the bulldozing of homes, the death of
Rachel Corrie and the reactions to the outbreak of the
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
.
Publication
*Sacco, Joe (2009). ''Footnotes in Gaza'',
Jonathan Cape, .
Jonathan Cape, .
Critical reception
The ''New York Times'' book Review quotes "Joe Sacco's brilliant, excruciating books of war reportage are potent territory.... He shows how much that is crucial to our lives a book can hold"
Rachel Cooke
Rachel Cooke (born 1969) is a British journalist and writer.
Early life
Cooke was born in Sheffield, and is the daughter of a university lecturer.
She went to school in Jaffa, Israel, until she was 11, before returning to Sheffield, and atten ...
called it "truly unique" in "combining as it does oral history, memoir and reportage with cartoons in a way that, when he started out, most people – himself included, at times – considered utterly preposterous."
''Publishers Weekly'' wrote, "Having already established his reputation as the world’s leading comics journalist, Sacco is now making a serious case to be considered one of the world’s top journalists, period. His newest undertaking is a bracing quest to uncover the truth about what happened in two Gaza Strip towns in 1956. . . . Sacco’s art is alternately epic and intimate, but it’s his exacting and harrowing interviews that make this book an invaluable and wrenching piece of journalism."
Footnotes in Gaza review
''Publishers Weekly'' (Dec. 2009).
Awards
*2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Since 1980, the ''Los Angeles Times'' has awarded a set of annual book prizes. The Prizes currently have nine categories: biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award added in 1991), history, mystery/thriller ...
Graphic Novel FinalistAngoulême International Comics Festival
The Angoulême International Comics Festival (french: Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême) is the second largest comics festival in Europe after the Lucca Comics & Games in Italy, and the third biggest in the world after ...
Worldview Award ("Prix regards sur le monde")
*2012 Oregon Book Award
The Oregon Book Awards are presented annually by Literary Arts to honor the "state’s finest accomplishments by Oregon writers who work in genres of poetry, fiction, graphic literature, drama, literary nonfiction, and literature for young readers ...
: Pacific Northwest College of Art
The Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) is an art school of Willamette University and is located in Portland, Oregon. Established in 1909, the art school grants Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees and graduate degrees including the Master of Fine ...
Graphic Literature Award
References
Further reading
*
External links
Macmillan Publishers
Macmillan Publishers (occasionally known as the Macmillan Group; formally Macmillan Publishers Ltd and Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC) is a British publishing company traditionally considered to be one of the 'Big Five' English language publ ...
{{Joe Sacco
2009 graphic novels
American graphic novels
Comics by Joe Sacco
Non-fiction graphic novels
Metropolitan Books books
Suez Crisis