« D’origine ivoirienne, Marguerite Abouet raconte l’Afrique de son enfance, loin des guerres, de la famine ou du sida. On rit beaucoup à la lecture de cette chronique tendre et pleine de verve, émaillée d’idiomes rigolos, qu’illustre avec fraîcheur le dessin de Clément Oubrerie. »
Lire
« Un vrai coup de cœur. »
Le Figaro
«C’est malin, hyper vivant, sensible et très humain, dans une VO ivoirienne fort poétique.»
Libération
«Chauffe le cœur et brûle l’iris.»
«Aya captive comme une savoureuse tranche d’Afrique, loin des clichés. »
Elle
« Un document hors pair sur la société ivoirienne de la fin des années 70… »
« Une expérience profonde (qui) dépayse complètement le lecteur hexagonal sans qu’il se sente
étranger à ce qui se joue. »
Le Figaro Littéraire
« Un festival de sons et de couleurs, une BD vitaminée à la bonne humeur. (…)
Aya, c’est l’Afrique sans ses plaies, mais avec toutes ses couleurs, qui éclatent, brûlées de soleil, dans des planches tout en rondeurs où l’œil a l’impression de caresser les peaux sous le bariolé des tissus »
Le Point
« Un ton pétillant d’humour.»
« Une chronique urbaine, lucide et généreuse, sans tape-à-l’œil, mais avec le souci du détail juste. »
A Nous Paris
« Une chronique sensible et pleine d’humour. À dévorer d’urgence.»
Je Bouquine
« Il se dégage de ce livre une sincérité et une douceur de vivre à « l’africaine » rare dans notre domaine. »
Bulldozer
« Une chronique sociale sensible, pleine d’humour et de saveur.»
Le Journal du Dimanche
« Aya regorge de personnages savoureux et de péripéties pétillantes. C’est souvent drôle, parfois poétique»
Télérama
« Des chroniques de vie, simples et réalistes, mais qui sont contées par l’ivoirienne Marguerite Abouet avec un talent tel que le récit en devient unique. Les dialogues, assaisonnés de ce nouchi (argot ivoirien) qui est un régal pour tous les amoureux de la langue de Molière, sert admirablement les dessins du français Clément Oubrerie. Très fidèle à la réalité
et à l’esprit abidjanais, cette philosophie de vie qui mêle humour, dérision, vitalité et amour des figures de style, ces histoires parlent à tous les publics. »
Africa International
« La langue, sensuelle et poétique, rafraîchit ; ce visage de l’Afrique ensorcelle »
Rolling Stone
> AYA OF YOP CITY (Aya 2 en anglais)
PW's Best Books of the Year
by PW Review Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 11/3/2008
“May you live in interesting times” is a quote commonly attributed to Confucius, probably erroneously, but Robert F. Kennedy did use it in a speech in 1966, adding a rueful twist: “Like it or not, we live in interesting times....” Regardless of your thinking on these current times, they are certainly anything but boring, and we feel the same about the books published this year.
Aya of Yop City
Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie (Drawn & Quarterly)
Abouet's funny and lighthearted story about life on the Ivory Coast in the late 1970s continues an affectionate look at a bygone lifestyle.
Aya of Yop City
Creators: Marguerite Abouet, Clement Oubrerie
October 13, 2008
COMICS REPORTER
I don't know that there's a more pleasurable new comics reading experience out there available to you than the two Aya books from the team of Marguerite Abouet and Clement Oubrerie, Aya and it recent sequel Aya of Yop City. The second book continues the first's exploration of overlapping lives in an Ivory Coast community in the late 1970s. It can be outright funny as it picks at its character's broadly-played appetites and delusional behavior, and the reading experience remains genial even when skirting along the edges of darker subject matter. The full-color artwork is frequently pretty enough that you'll almost certainly revisit certain pages and panels after reading the story a first time; the establishing shots in particular are lovely, pull-out-the-stops efforts. I could read one of these a month like friends of mine have devoured the entirety of Armisted Maupin's San Francisco saga in serial fashion. It's perfectly measured entertainment of its kind. There's even a twist ending.
Where Aya of Yop City differs from Aya is that Abouet and Oubrerie no longer get a boost based solely on revealing the cleverness of their central idea, their use of soap opera as a sociological excavation tool. That element remains, for sure. There's even a welcome but obvious reference to the television show Dallas, if you had any doubts as to the authors' general intent. Why the new book succeeds I think is that it continues the bouncy tone of the first volume but intensifies its use of familiar narrative structure to peel back the layers of life in Yop City not just to the secrets and ambitions of various characters, but into what those things say about these characters' lives and prospects for happiness. When Bintou invests a portion of herself into a secret romance, we know from watching years of these kinds of stories that there's probably something not-right about the whole affair. She sure doesn't, though, and the innocence of it, the hopefulness behind it, breaks your heart a bit and makes you question just how many options are open to her. The suggestion I felt was being made is that those elements of interest and excitement in various characters lives are the exact things that restrain and immobilize them. Even Aya, the calm center around which flit many of the narrative's more flamboyant characters, can be seen to rattle a bit against the cage-like aspects of her father's concerns for her future.
>AYA (Aya 1 en anglais)
« The charming story of a smart teenage girl and her boy-crazy friends, set in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, during a period of peace in the 1970s. »
Best of List 2007 (Aya)
«Abouet’s lovely graphic novel about coming of age as an African teenage girl in the ’70s is a reminder that life in Africa is always hard, but not always misery, war and squalor. »
Montreal Mirror
Best of List
« Best European book: Aya by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie. An African expatriate and a Parisian artist tell charming slice-of-life story set in the Ivory Coast. »
Panels and Pixels
Best of List
« This engaging graphic novel about an older teen girl who is frustrated by less-forwardthinking friends and family is strengthened by memorable characters and universal emotions. »
Booklist
Editor’s Choice 2007
« Abouet, who was raised in Ivory Coast, has attempted to create something very brave in Aya - an
intimate portrait of the African world that exists outside the glare of the media spotlight.
Occasionally it works. Oubrerie’s artwork is exacting; he sends the characters dancing and flirting and sweating through a backdrop of ochre and violet, and allows them little pause. »
Boston Globe
« The tones match the wry humour of the writing. »
The Guardian
« Writer Marguerite Abouet and artist Clément Oubrerie deliver a fun and quick-witted tale of teen pleasures and troubles as the sensible Aya watches with fascination while her friends outwit their parents and sometimes even themselves in pursuit of fun times. »
Metro News
« Aya is more than just a good comic book. It’s a historical document, a window into the recent past of a country whose better days weren’t so long ago. It’s a testament to the inherent humanity that crosses race and geographic borders. »
Newsrama’s Best Shots
« Despite geographic and cultural differences, teenage girls (and boys) display common foibles, strengths and dreams, and Aya left this reader yearning for the next chapter in the lives of these vibrant and vivacious characters. »
Miami Herald
« Marguerite Abouet weaves her tale with a rich sense of character and a keen eye for detail, the two elements that invariably separate good melodrama from mere soap opera. She doesn’t call attention to the specifics of life in the Ivory Coast; rather, she wraps her characters in subtle detail and lets them fulfill their roles at a natural pace, allowing incidental business to keep the eye busy while the story unfolds. »
Comics Journal
