Le Désert d’Ata. Claire Malary and Mélanie Trugeon.

24 × 32 cm 112 pages illustrations in black & white and color hardback april 2021 retail price: 23 €

Grand Prix Artémisia 2019 award winner, Claire Malary graduated from the École professionnelle supérieure d’arts graphiques et d’architecture in Paris (epsaa). She worked in the fields of gastronomy and fashion, before publishing her first album, Hallali, with L’Œuf publications. She also contributed to the first issue of La Vilaine, published by a Rennes collective.

Mélanie Trugeon is an author and director. Her work looks at issues of the body through different visual media. Her collaboration with Claire on Le Désert d’Ata is her first graphic novel project.

THE ATA DESERT

Claire Malary and Mélanie Trugeon

Jahel, a young ornithologist and phoenicopteriforme specialist is driving through the desert in search of a specific species: the Andean pink flamingo. When she stops at a spring to study the bird-life, unbeknownst to her she defiles a tomb consecrated by a local man, Ata. In the middle of this hostile no-man’s land, two beings torn apart by guilt and solitude come face-to-face.

Le Désert d’Ata is a dark tale in black white, stripped back to its bare line drawings, with occasional touches of color. In flashback sequences and tableaux, Mélanie Trugeon and Claire Malary cast an acerbic and pitiless eye on the violence of our humanity, through a narrative constructed with all the elements of tragedy: unpredictable forces of nature, the brutality of loss, and the cruelty of the past.

An unconventional graphic novel and a poetic account of the raw emotions released when cultures clash in extreme conditions.