Reading list

Graphic Non-fiction Reading List

Radical biographies and histories, beautifully rendered in artwork.

1 December 2023

Want a break from your heavy tomes? Graphic nonfiction brings to life radical explorations of resistance, revolution, and solidarity. These beautifully rendered stories offer insight into often-forgotten histories and biographies — from the Golden Age of piracy to the Haitian Revolution, to the occupation of Palestine.

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Toussaint Louverture

by C.L.R. James

Illustrated by Sakina Karimjee and Nic Watts

The end of slavery started in what was then San Domingo. In 1791, the enslaved people of the most prized French sugar plantation colony revolted against their masters. For over twelve years, agains...

Under the Banner of King Death

by David Lester and Marcus Rediker

Illustrated by David Lester

Afterword by Paul Buhle

Foreword by Marcus Rediker

Under the Banner of King Death is a tale of mutiny, bloody battle, and social revolution, bringing to life an itinerant community of outsiders behind today’s legends. This graphic novel breaks new ...

Prophet against Slavery

by David Lester

Illustrated by David Lester

Edited by Paul Buhle and Marcus Rediker

Prophet against Slavery is an action-packed chronicle of a remarkable and radical individual. It is based on the award-winning biography by Marcus Rediker, which prompted the Quaker community that ...

A Child in Palestine

by Naji al-Ali

Introduction by Joe Sacco

Naji al-Ali grew up in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in the south Lebanese city of Sidon, where his gift for drawing was discovered by the Palestinian poet Ghassan Kanafani in the l...

Red Rosa

by Kate Evans

A giant of the political left, Rosa Luxemburg is one of the foremost minds in the canon of revolutionary socialist thought. But she was much more than just a thinker. She made herself heard in a wo...

Che

by Spain Rodriguez

Edited by Paul Buhle

Since his murder 50 years ago in Bolivia, Ernesto “Che” Guevara has become a universally known revolutionary icon and political figure whose image is among the most recognizable in the world. Thi...

La Lucha

Illustrated by Jon Sack

Foreword by Lucha Castro

The Mexican border state of Chihuahua and its city Juarez have become internationally notorious for violence, as drug cartel battles and official corruption have colluded to produce more murders an...

Operation Ajax

by Mike de Seve

Illustrated by Daniel Burwen

Foreword by Stephen Kinzer

The year is 1953. As the value of oil skyrockets, global power brokers begin to take interest in the political regimes of the Middle East. British agents have controlled Iranian oil exports for a...

Wobblies!

Contributions by Mike Alewitz, Sue Coe, Sabrina Jones, Peter Kuper, Harvey Pekar, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez and Seth Tobocman

Edited by Paul Buhle and Nicole Schulman

The stories of the hard-rock miners’ shooting wars, young Elizabeth Gurly Flynn (the “Rebel Girl” of contemporary sheet music), the first sit-down strikes and Free Speech fights, Emma Goldman and t...

Bohemians

Edited by David Berger and Paul Buhle

The countercultures that came to define bohemia spanned the Atlantic, encompassing Walt Whitman's Brooklyn and the Folies Bergère of Josephine Baker, Gertrude Stein's salons and the Manhattan cl...

Masks of Anarchy

by Michael Demson

Illustrated by Summer McClinton

Masks of Anarchy tells the extraordinary story of Shelley’s “The Masque of Anarchy,” its conception in Italy, its suppression in England, and how it became a rallying cry for workers across the Atl...

Savage Messiah

by Laura Grace Ford

Preface by Greil Marcus

Introduction by Mark Fisher

Savage Messiah collects the entire set of Laura Grace Ford’s fanzine to date. Part graphic novel, part artwork, the book is both an angry polemic against the marginalization of the city’s working c...

Eugene V. Debs

by Noah Van Sciver

Eugene Victor Debs led the Socialist Party in the early twentieth-century to federal and state office across the country, helped to pioneer a fighting union politics that organized all workers, and...

Threads

by Kate Evans

**LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR BOOKS 2018**In the French port town of Calais, famous for its historic lace industry, a city within a city arose. This new town, known as the Jungle, was home ...

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