Oleg
French, Atrabile, Geneva, 2021
Twenty years after Pilules bleues, Frederik Peeters tells his story again, but swaps the «I» for the «he», and, by using this avatar, Oleg, blurs the lines and avoids the trap of triviality. Through these chronicles, which are in turn funny, incisive, touching and even surprising, he (partially) lifts the veil on his profession and his daily life as a cartoonist, and in so doing points out a number of contradictions that haunt our time: technological ultra-modernity and reactionary thinking, the cult of superficiality and the quest for authenticity, overabundance and disarray.
But Oleg can also simply be read as a beautiful declaration of love by the author to those closest to him – and as a reminder, devoid of mawkishness, that it is this strength that allows us to sublimate the banal, and to stand up to adversity.
- Title
- Oleg
- Publisher
- Atrabile, Geneva
- Translation rights
- Sarah Lapalu (eddy agency), sarah@eddy-agency.com
- Publication date
- January 2021
- Pages
- 184
- ISBN
- 978-2-88923-096-9
Author
Frederik Peeters
©Frederik Peeters
Born in 1974 in Geneva, Frederik Peeters developed a passionate relationship with drawing at a very young age, thanks in part to his (repeated!) reading of Hergé’s comics. Today, Frederik Peeters is considered one of the most talented and influential authors of his generation. He has published a large body of work ranging from autobiography (Blue Pills, Oleg) to science fiction (Lupus, Aâma), from detective stories (RG) to westerns (The Smell of Starving Boys), from drama (Pachyderm) to the ‘unclassifiable’ (Saccage). A multi-awarded author (Angoulême Festival, Töpffer Prize), his works are now published in many countries such as Spain, Brazil, the United States, Italy, Russia, Poland, Germany, and others. In July 2021, Old, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and based on Peeters’ comic strip Château de sable (on a screenplay by Pierre Oscar Lévy), was released.
