Listen, Beautiful Márcia

Marcello Quintanilha, Andrea Rosenberg (Translated by)

$29.99

Publication Date: May 30th, 2023

Publisher:

Fantagraphics

ISBN:

9781683967774

Pages:

128

Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Weeks

Description

Listen, Beautiful Márcia is a gripping story about a family pushed to the brink. This English language debut was the 2022 "Fauve d'Or" winner at the 2022 Angoulême Comics Festival.

Márcia is a nurse in a hospital near Rio and lives in a favela with her boyfriend, Aluisio, and her daughter, Jaqueline, whom she had very young with another man. Jaqueline, a troubled young adult, makes life difficult for her mother and Aluisio and rebelliously hangs out with members of a neighborhood gang, leading to violent altercations between mother and daughter. The situation degenerates even more when Jaqueline is arrested. Márcia and Aluisio, distraught, realize that Jaqueline is in deeper trouble than they ever thought.

Listen, Beautiful Márciais a fast-paced, flamboyantly colorful new graphic novel by one of the most important Brazilian graphic novelists working today. Marcello Quintanilha’s first English-language graphic novel is a tour de force — a tightly wound drama filled with masterful suspense and a deep love for family and character.

About the Author

Marcello Quintanilha was born in 1971 outside Rio de Janeiro. His first graphic novel, Tungsteno, published in 2015, was adapted for film by director Heitor Dhalia. He has lived in Barcelona since 2002.

Andrea Rosenberg is a translator who has worked on a variety of novels and graphic narratives in Spanish and Portuguese. Her translations of the graphic novels Run For It by Marcelo D’Salete and The House by Paco Roca won Eisner Awards in 2018 and 2020, respectively.

Praise for Listen, Beautiful Márcia

Cinematic and saturated with color, Quintanilha’s English-language debut, a character study of a mother trying to keep her family safe in a Brazilian favela, vibrates with emotion. The scenes throb with violence and heartache, but those closest to Márcia ultimately see her kindness, which also permeates every page. It’s a gorgeous tumult.
— Publishers Weekly

Listen, Beautiful Márcia broadly qualifies as crime drama, yet it’s the prevailing sense of humanity that pushes it beyond, Márcia’s personality proving stronger than mere genre classification.

— Slings & Arrows

A very beautiful portrait of a mother’s courage.
— Rolling Stone

A virtuoso of storytelling in images, Quantanilha admirably portrays ordinary individuals caught in situations that are not ordinary.
— Telerama

We laugh, we cry when reading this amazing graphic object, illuminated with carnivalesque colors that accentuate the gap between comedy and tragedy.
— Le Monde

A powerful graphic novel... Both a raw picture of the Brazilian working class and a beautiful story of filial love.
— Livres Hebdo