This atmospheric graphic novel captures the rollicking arts scene of ’60s Buenos Aires.
When night falls in Buenos Aires, the city comes alive. Artists flock to cafes and dives to exchange ideas, listen to music, watch outré performance art, pen poetry, fall in love. In these raucous, smoke filled rooms, the bohemian heart and soul of this vibrant city, a conflagration of creative energy burns. With the improvisational pacing of a jazz performance, Beatnik Buenos Aires follows the lives of writers, painters, musicians, sculptors, and performers as they wend their way through these hubs of creative life, seeking out inspiration and grappling with their craft. Set in 1963, this graphic novel celebrates a time in Argentine history when its art scene blossomed.
Argentine creators Diego Arandojo (writer) and Facundo Percio (illustrator) come together to weave the rich tapestry of this mecca of artistic expression. Arandojo’s staccato dialogue lends a poetic quality to these lively, often mysterious characters, while Percio’s raw and expressive charcoal drawings perfectly capture the rough charm of this eclectic community of artists and the seedy, smoky locales they inhabit. Romantic, dangerous, and brimming with life — Buenos Aires in the time of the beatnik.
Diego Arandojo is an Argentine author, scriptwriter, award-winning film and TV documentarian, and filmmaker. In addition to writing short fiction, novels, graphic novels, children’s radio plays, and more, he runs the digital magazine Lafarium.
Andrea Rosenberg is a translator who has worked on a variety of novels and graphic narratives in Spanish and Portuguese. Her translations of the graphic novels Run For It by Marcelo D’Salete and The House by Paco Roca won Eisner Awards in 2018 and 2020, respectively.
Facundo Percio is an Argentine comics artist located in Buenos Aires. He’s worked with writers such as Alan Moore and Warren Ellis, and has drawn Star Wars comics.
This sensational portrayal will transport readers to an Argentina where truth is far stranger and more wonderful than fiction — while fabulously mixing up both.
— Publishers Weekly
Written in a combination of poetic verses and sparse dialogue, and visualized in smoky charcoal drawings, this graphic novel is an evocative love letter to the creation of art and the mad geniuses who live for its birth.
— Monkeys Fighting Robots
Beatnik Buenos Aires builds and builds, providing the cultural stew of a glimpse back to a creative era that burned briefly, but brightly, and indelibly for some. ... It’s a masterpiece.
— The Slings & Arrows
