For years, Andreas von Buddenbrock has been filling sketchbook after sketchbook with ink drawings that all aim to capture the places and people he comes across; from market stalls and their vendors to high rises and dilapidated buildings to lush, winding nature trails.
Illustrated
On a sunny day, a young girl skips in the courtyard of her home in Iron Gate Hutong. She’s alone, but across the alley life is busy.
As the clock approaches 8 pm, a young boy hears the howling wind and believes it is asking him to come out and play. When his mother informs him that it’s bedtime, Ricky settles down for the night. The wind, however, does not.
It’s the first day of a new school year and friends Pangolin and Slow Loris make their way along a jungle trail to meet their new teacher. They reminisce about the summer—Pangolin recalls an anthill exploding with larvae and eggs—before Mrs. Bat flies into the classroom to introduce herself.
Eleven-year-old Zadie Ma has what her younger brother Teddy calls a “superpower”: some of the stories that Zadie writes come true. It’s true of the ants whose lives Zadie saves from her mother’s wrath by writing a story about a little ant who anticipates the poison. It’s true of a fox she writes about that then appears.
Pwin-u-Lwin is a town in upper Burma, situated in the hills east of Mandalay, known for its cool climate. Yet for many, Pwin-u-Lwin is better known as Maymyo. Renamed in 1896 after the head of the 5th Bengal infantry, Colonel James May, Maymyo was the most famous hill station in colonial Burma. The British occupied Maymyo in 1895 and a military garrison was erected there in 1897. It soon became a popular holiday destination for those living in Burma. In 1900, following the construction of a train line to Mandalay, it became the summer capital for the British Raj in Burma, allowing colonial officials to leave steamy Rangoon behind until the heat and rains had subsided.
In the opening chapter of Susumu Higa’s manga, Okinawa, a group of Japanese soldiers land on a Ryukyuan island to prepare for World War II’s Battle of Okinawa. A child asks her principal whether the soldiers will occupy their island forever. “Until they know all of us are safe,” he replies. His words are an ominous beginning for readers who know anything about the next seventy years of Okinawa’s history.