Peter returns for 2024. Graphic Novelist, Peter Kuper has been exploring Oaxaca through his writing and drawing since 1983. Here he presents his career and connection to Oaxaca, entomology, and comics.

Diario de Oaxaca. Painting a vivid, personal portrait of social and political upheaval in Oaxaca, Mexico, this unique memoir employs comics, bilingual essays, photos, and sketches to chronicle the events that unfolded around a teachers' strike and led to a seven-month siege. When award-winning cartoonist Peter Kuper and his wife and daughter moved to the beautiful, 15th-century colonial town of Oaxaca in 2006, they planned to spend a quiet year or two enjoying a different culture and taking a break from the U.S. political climate under the Bush administration. What they hadn't counted on was landing in the epicenter of Mexico's biggest political struggle in recent years. Timely and compelling, this extraordinary firsthand account presents a distinct artistic vision of Oaxacan life, from explorations of the beauty of the environment to graphic portrayals of the fight between strikers and government troops that left more than 20 people dead, including American journalist Brad Will.

Speaker Bio:

Peter Kuper is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, The Nation, and MAD magazine where he has written and illustrated SPY vs. SPY every issue since 1997. He is the co-founder and editor of World War 3 Illustrated, a political graphics magazine that has given a forum to political artists for 43 years. He has produced over two dozen books including: The System, Diario de Oaxaca, Ruins and adaptations of many of Franz Kafka's works

into comics including The Metamorphosis and Kafkaesque. His latest graphic novel is an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Peter is currently working on INterSECTS , a graphic novel history of insects and the people who have studied them. He has lectured around the world and teaches “Comics” at Harvard University.