Jerusalem: This Year in a Comic Book

Comic book artist Guy Delisle spent a year living in Jerusalem, where he observed the heady cocktail of religion, paranoia, and faith that makes the country such a beguiling place. From the summer of 2008 to 2009, Delisle’s wife, Nadège, worked in Palestine as an administrator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), while Delisle explored his new city.

Like in his three previous graphic novels about Shenzhen, China; Pyongyang, North Korea; and Burma; Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City offers a series of vignettes illustrating the personal frustrations and small victories of daily life in a foreign land: searching for booze in a Muslim supermarket, trying to outsmart Ben Gourion airport’s legendary security screenings, or stumbling upon a quiet and secluded monastery. Foreign Policy has an exclusive excerpt of the book, which comes out in the United States on April 24. In the excerpt below, Delisle loses himself in Jerusalem’s Old City.

On a later excursion, Delisle follows a group of women from Checkpoint Watch, and joins them, and many others, in observing the daily life at a checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

Later, an MSF director asks Delisle to draw his reporting trip to Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank.

On a quiet afternoon, Delisle heads to the zoo with a friend.

These images used with permission from Drawn & Quarterly.