Book Launch of Alcazar by Simon Lamouret

Launch of the Alcazar Simone

Launch of the Alcazar

February 20, 2022 @ 19:00 - 20:00

Launch of the Alcazar

The French Institute in India in collaboration with the publishing house Comix India is launching the English translation of Alcazar, an award-winning French graphic novel by Simon Lamouret.

The Alcazar follows the lives of migrant construction workers building a residential complex in Bangalore.

Simon will be in conversation with Bharath Murthy, his Indian publisher and Mansi. The session will be moderated by Angshuman Chakraborty, a comics collector.

This publication has been supported by the PAP Tagore programme

Feb 20, 2022 | 7 pm IST

Simon Lamouret is a graphic novelist and illustrator based out of Toulouse, France.

A few years after graduating from Les Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, he decided to move to Bangalore for a year. His initial plan of spending a year abroad turned into him spending several years in India: drawing and observing, first in a spirit of novelty, later in a more focused manner.

This journey is witnessed through his two graphic novels: Bangalore (2017) and L’Alcazar (2020) which he published in France. While the first was an autobiographical travelogue about the peculiarities one finds on the streets of a major Indian city, the second attempted to depict the daily life of construction workers based on a thorough observation of a construction site near his house.

Mansi Kashatria is currently a PhD researcher in Cultural Studies based out of Norrköping, Sweden.

Having a background in Migration Studies, Rural Livelihoods, and Geography, she finds herself on the margins of these disciplines but with one foot always out in the world of contemporary art. Growing up under the post-colonial thought can be blamed for her critical and disjointed relationship with the discursive economy of contemporary art and its institutions. Her latest and ongoing research, therefore, hopes to develop a critical inquiry into how certain artistic practices can act as a site of resistance, radicality, and emancipation.

The research experience with Alcazar was pivotal for Mansi in not only establishing a collaboration with a dear friend who is a skilled graphic novelist but also in the way the entire research practice aimed for an accessible, inclusive artwork that keeps the authorship of the narration with those whose lives we become a part of in the novel.

He is a cartoonist, filmmaker and editor/publisher. He edits and publishes Vérité, a comics magazine for adults, under the Comix India label.

Angshuman lives and works in New Delhi. An avid fan of the comics medium, he started the YouTube channel “For the Love of Comics” in 2018.

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