The rise of authoritarianism is a global problem, with political rights and civil liberties declining across countries for the 18th consecutive year, according to Freedom House. Democracy is hanging on by a thread. Fifty-two countries saw setbacks, and the majority of the world’s population now live in what the organization considers “partly free” or “not free” states.
My co-author Chinese activist artist Badiucao and I set out working on our debut graphic novel, You Must Take Part in Revolution, in part because we wanted to sound alarm bells about this. Our story is about a near-future war between a fascist U.S. and techno-authoritarian China. Taiwan is divided in half along a DMZ, and there is also a nuclear threat. Both of us once lived and worked in China. I’ve also reported from Russia, Cuba, and North Korea. We felt an urgency to go beyond the scope of our usual work, Badiucao with his political cartooning and I with my human rights reporting, to reach a wider audience.
In this reading list, these graphic novels use text and illustration to examine the rise of authoritarianism in several countries, highlighting the subtle and insidious ways that democracy crumbles. We live in frightening times. If there’s a through line across the books on this list, it is that resistance comes at great personal cost—but the consequences of failing to fight back are even greater.
Woman, Life, Freedom by Marjane Satrapi
From the author of Persepolis—one of the most important graphic novels of the past 20 years—comes Woman, Life, Freedom. This new collection delves into the 2022 pro-democracy protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody for allegedly not wearing her hijab correctly. Produced in collaboration with Iranian activists, artists, journalists, and scholars, the book offers a primer on contemporary Iran, with chapters drawn by different artists, touching on everything from contemporary state surveillance to heartache and loss.
Accidental Czar: The Life and Lies of Vladimir Putin by Andrew S. Weiss and Brian “Box” Brown
Artist Brian “Box” Brown’s aesthetic matches well with the Soviet-era Brutalism into which Vladimir Putin was born. That’s where author Andrew S. Weiss starts — from the very beginning, examining Putin’s childhood, to his relatively middling years as a KGB officer, all the way to his unlikely rise to absolute power. In retelling his journey, the book also provides insight into contemporary Russia, particularly when it comes to connecting the vigilante decade of the 1990s when the economy collapsed, to why most ordinary citizens continue to support Putin’s strongman leadership today.
Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey by Edel Rodriguez
You may not recognize the author’s name, but you’ve almost certainly have come across his art. Edel Rodriguez—a stalwart of the graphic arts community—shot to global fame during Trump’s presidency with searing imagery: the president as a terrorist beheading the Statue of Liberty, as a Klansman in a white hood. His bold, unflinching work landed on the covers of Time and Der Spiegel, cementing his place as one of the most incisive political artists of our time. In Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey, Rodriguez shifts styles but loses none of his power, turning his gaze inward to tell the gripping story of his childhood in Cuba and his escape to Florida during the 1980 Mariel boatlift.
Berlin by Jason Lutes
Berlin captures one of the freest periods in the city’s history — and also one of its most foreboding: the Weimar Republic of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Jason Lutes spent 20 years crafting his story, balancing historical precision with captivating characters fighting to hold on as the rot of Nazism seeps into society. He takes readers from the wild nightclubs and private salons to the quiet huddle of Communist recruitment meetings. It’s a massive opus at almost 600 pages——one worthy of a city as complex and beloved as Berlin itself.
The Death of Stalin by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin
The Death of Stalin, made into the 2017 Armando Iannucci film of the same name, is political satire at its finest. The story focuses on the power struggle following the death of the Soviet leader in 1953. The book’s scenes may be too absurd to have been historically factual, but they nevertheless hit at fundamental truths of Politburo politics — dynamics which remain relevant today for Putin in his palace. Succession is a messy business of scheming and backstabbing, and Nury’s graphic novel is a preview of the bloody infighting we might expect to see when any despotdespots dies.
1984: The Graphic Novel by Fido Nesti
Orwell’s masterpiece and final book of his lifetime is the story of Winston Smith, who serves the Ministry of Truth by manufacturing its lies. As he toys with joining the resistance, Smith will learn that Big Brother is always watching… The graphic novel version of the George Orwell classic is part of a trend in recent years of comics adaptations of classic dystopian literature. There are also graphical versions of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Fido Nesti’s artwork here, especially his palette choice of ombre grays and crepuscular reds, is an excellent way to revisit the novel, or read it for the first time.
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s classic is set in a post-nuclear and totalitarian London. After a global war leaves the U.K. in a political vacuum, far-right extremists take power. The diverse capital is cleaned out, with ethnic minorities and queer people shipped off to concentration camps. The book’s cultural impact is undeniable. Thirty years after publication, Hong Kongers in 2019 donned the book’s signature Guy Fawkes masks as they protested against the Chinese government’s authoritarian-totalitarian control over the city-state. The same maniacal smile has become the symbol of Anonymous, the online hacktivist collective. Around the world, life continues to imitate art as new generations draw inspiration from V’s anarchist revolution.
Maus by Art Spiegelman
It would be malpractice for any book list on authoritarianism to leave out Art Spiegelman’s Maus, possibly the best-known graphic novel in the world. It was the first one in the genre to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1992, and has become a staple of high school curricula. Spiegelman takes the dehumanizing verbiage used by fascists to describe minorities and redeploys it, drawing Jews as mice and Nazis as menacing cats. The story itself examines what happens to the author’s father, a Holocaust survivor — from the pre-war years to liberation from the concentration camps — plus the subsequent intergenerational trauma as Spiegelman grapples with the difficult relationship he has with father.
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