FANTAGRAPHICS AT 50! Blending documented fact and speculative fiction Marcelo D’Salete’s Tiodora’s Letters: An Enslaved Woman’s Fight for Family and Freedom is a meticulously researched re-creation of the story of Tiodora da Cunha Dias, just one of the millions of Africans brought to Brazil as slaves from the 16th century onwards. Tiodora’s story takes place in the nineteenth century with its inspiration being a collection of actual archived letters from the era, written at the time with the aim of securing her freedom and her reunion with her family.
D’Salete takes historical actuality and from it crafts a fictional account of how Benê, a young Black man, embarked on a dangerous journey across Brazil to deliver the letters to the plantation where he believed Tiodora’s husband and son may be. In this regard Tiodora’s Letters is as much Benê’s story as it is Tiodora’s as, along the way, he encounters the brutal racism of the period, the indigenous people who aid him, and a violent young white man who becomes a recurring nemesis. It’s a trip fraught with peril, ending in a destination and a resolution that may not be what he was expecting…
Tiodora’s Letters says so much more for its subtlety and nuance than more obvious commentary would do. D’Salete’s great skill here is in bringing us so centrally into the horrors that the characters endure that we feel like powerless observers to the atrocities we are witnessing. While the story acts as a powerful exploration of this shameful part of Brazil’s history it also operates as a careful character study; both a coming-of-age story for Benê and a testament to determination in the face of the most oppressive adversity for Tiodora.
The charcoal artwork is moody and evocative, with a potent use of almost claustrophobic shadow to set mood and tone. D’Salete frequently makes use of wordless sequences to emphasise the expanse of the natural world Benê travels through which, again, immerse us so fully in the experiences of the character that we become invested in his ordeals in a far more instinctual way. Backed up with a wealth of extra materials – academic essays, scans of the real Tiadora’s letters, and an extensive bibliography for further research – Tiodora’s Letters is a remarkable blend of historical artefact and conjectural storytelling that unflinchingly confronts the horrifying inhumanity experienced by so many millions of enslaved Africans.
Marcelo D’Salete (W/A), Andrea Rosenberg (T) • Fantagraphics Books, $24.99
Buy online from Gosh! Comics here
Review by Andy Oliver
Fantagraphics at 50 Month runs through August at Broken Frontier. You can see articles as they’re published in one tagged list here.
