All My Bicycles

by Powerpaola, Andrea Rosenberg (Translator)

Overview

In this nonlinear graphic memoir, Powerpaola uses bicycles she’s owned as a vehicle to explore the world, her relationships, her memories — and herself.

“A bicycle is a machine that you power yourself. You decide where you want to go,” writes cartoonist Powerpaola, as the guiding principle of this graphic memoir. All My Bicycles is a story that never really begins, existing all at once in Paola’s memory. The book illustrates Powerpaola’s relationships through her many bicycles: in fragments, it takes her back to her great loves and losses, friendships, and disappointments.

In remembering a bicycle, a manhole, an alligator, or a necklace, Powerpaola reflects upon these items in her consciousness without finding a concrete solution. Paola’s memories arrive abruptly and leave just as fast, creating a pathway through herself she can only find in moving forward. All My Bicycles is a glimpse into how exploring these fleeting tangible moments — of physical objects, of traveling and seeing a new city, of even the end of a relationship — is an exploration of self.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683969501
Publisher:	Fantagraphics
Publication date:	06/18/2024
Pages:	108
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Powerpaola is a Colombian Ecuadorian cartoonist and visual artist based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She authored the graphic memoir Virus Tropical (2011), which became a movie in 2017 and received critical acclaim worldwide. Por Dentro (2012), Diario (2013), qp (2013), Todo Va a Estar Bien (2015), and Nos vamos (2016) followed. Her work deals with themes of sexuality, feminism, family, and personal identity. She was a member of the international collective Chicks on Comics and No Tan Parecidos and published Las Ciudades que Somos (2018) and Tierra Larga (2019) with them, respectively.

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.

Editorial Reviews

"One of the great works of Colombian literature (and not just comics)."

El Tiempo

"An elliptical and funny memoir that at first seems to be about the Colombian-Ecuadorean artist’s romantic relationships and then finds its way to a more focused self-examination."

The New York Times

"A melancholic, and touching portrait of Powerpaola as she moves to new cities in Colombia, each with a new bicycle."

The Comics Journal