Alpha's wife and son left Côte d'Ivoire months ago to join his sister-in-law in Paris, but Alpha has heard nothing from them since. With a visa, Alpha's journey to reunite with his family would take a matter of hours. Without one, he is adrift for over a year, encountering human traffickers in the desert, refugee camps in northern Africa, overcrowded boats carrying migrants between the Canary Islands and Europe's southern coast, and an unforgettable cast of fellow travelers lost and found along the way. Throughout, Alpha stays the course, carrying his loved ones' photograph close to his heart as he makes his perilous trek across continents. Featuring emotive, full-color artwork created in felt-tip pen and wash, Alpha is an international award–winning graphic novel supported by Amnesty International that received the PEN Promotes Award and Doctors Without Borders Prize, and was longlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. The U.S. edition is sponsored by Le Korsa, a nonprofit organization devoted to improving human lives in Senegal. Bessora is an award-winning writer of Swiss, German, French, Polish, and Gabonese heritage whose work has been anthologized in Best European Fiction. Barroux is a French graphic artist who spent much of his childhood in North Africa and whose illustrations have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Forbes.
"Alpha is the story of everyone who bravely risks all they know for the hope of a better future. . . . Honest and direct rather than inspiring and romantic, Alpha gives a name and face to the multitudes in refugee camps all over the world. An important story for all of us to know."
New York Journal of Books
"Bessora's prose and Barroux's illustrations join to illuminate the heart-wrenching journey of a West African refugee. . . . The reader is drawn into the refugee's experience and shares his agonizing odyssey via the graphic novel's blunt yet poetic language."
