Aya: Life in Yop City

Marguerite Abouet was born in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in 1971. At the age of twelve, she was sent with her older brother to study in France under the care of a great uncle. She lives in Romainville, a suburb of Paris, where she works as a legal assistant and writes novels she has yet to show to publishers. Aya is her first comic. It taps into Abouet’s childhood memories of Ivory Coast in the 1970s, a prosperous, promising time in that country’s history, to tell an unpretentious and gently humorous story of an Africa we rarely see―spirited, hopeful, and resilient.Clément Oubrerie was born in Paris in 1966. After a stint in art school he spent two years in the United States doing a variety of odd jobs, publishing his first children’s books and serving jail time in New Mexico for working without papers. Back in France, he went on to a prolific career in illustration. With over forty children’s books to his credit, he is also cofounder of the 3D animation studio Station OMD. A drummer in a funk band in his spare time, he still travels frequently, especially to the Ivory Coast. In Aya, his first comic, Oubrerie’s warm colors and energetic, playful line connect expressively with Marguerite Abouet’s vibrant writing.

“Oubrerie's style animates both the broadly funny and painfully grave moments in Abouet's rhythmic slice-of-life storytelling.” —The Washington Post“Marguerite Abouet's comic tells of a lost age, a time in the late 1970s when the Ivory Coast was basking in the glow of an economic boom, when disco seeped from the open air clubs in Abidjan and teenage girls such as Aya, Adjoua and Bintou were able to enjoy one last flirtatious summer before adulthood . . . Abouet's is a gentle, nostalgic account.” —Craig Taylor, The Guardian