A

A timeless parable about oppression

Pavel Čech’s latest prize-winning comic book comes as something of a surprise after his previous work. The wordless story adopts a grim Orwellian tone and warns against all forms of totalitarianism. This is embodied by the ever-present letter A, which is the only letter permitted. Although there are generally just six panels to a page, upon repeated viewing we discover a wealth of detail related to the impact of autocracy: depersonalized factory machinery, a beret with a number on it, food rationing, dull school lessons and mass demonstrations in favour of the hysterically revered letter... One day, the inquisitive main character with the numbered beret spots a paper airplane with the letter B on it, for which an old man from the neighbourhood has been punished. Thanks to his desire to fly, he manages to reach a land full of colour and letters on a converted bicycle and decides to symbolically describe his experiences to others by going all the way from A to Z.

From the White Ravens annotation:

A young man lives under the dictatorship of “A”: Everyone says, thinks and feels “A” – or is at least expected to. There are buildings in “A” form, and newspapers write articles exclusively using the letter “A”. One day the man finds a forbidden flyer with the message: “B”. New ideas germinate in him: other thoughts, beliefs, and ways of life are possible! In an extraordinary effort, the young man floods the dictatorship with books and texts containing all the letters of the alphabet. “A” is a fabulous comic by Czech illustrator Pavel Čech. With narrative acumen, Čech not only captures life in an oppressive system, but also shows how it is possible to resist and overthrow it. Aside from the symbolic letters “A” and “B”, which stand in for messages, information, and censorship, Čech’s book is textless – making it even more extraordinary and gripping in its expressive power.

Reader age: 10+