Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie, Aya (Drawn & Quarterly, 2007). $19.95, hardcover.

By Taylor Nelms and Eva Yonas

We recently noticed that three-fourths of our reviews, and a good deal of the comics on our bookshelf, have been written by native French-speakers. What is it with us? Perhaps this speaks to the recent proliferation of Franco-Belgian comics, perhaps to the publishing power of Montreal’s Drawn and Quarterly, or perhaps we subconsciously want to become French ex-pats. (We would like to take this opportunity to invite you all to our Bastille Day celebration on July 14th.  Wine, cheese, and berets for all!) Aya, written by Marguerite Abouet and drawn by Clément Oubrerie, our latest French fascination,continues the infiltration of French comics into the American mainstream spearheaded by Marjane Satrapi and Joann Sfar. Widely celebrated in France (it won the Prize for First Comic Book at the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême), Aya comes stateside with some expectation. Our own anticipation has been partly based on what we thought would be Aya’s difference. Set in the Ivory Coast in the prosperous 1970s, the text promises an intimate rendering of daily life distinct from the overwhelming representation of modern Africa, filled with, as Alisia Grace Chase’s insightful preface puts it, “swollen belied children, machete wielding janjaweeds, and too many men and women dying of AIDS.”

Aya does not disappoint, at least in this respect: the quotidian trials of its teenage characters provide a stark contrast to an Africa imagined as a continent of relentless crisis. Approaching Aya from the perspective of difference, however, may be the wrong idea. In fact, what strike us most about the novel are its similarities—to other French comics artists and to other adolescent coming-of-age stories.

On first glance, Aya looks strikingly like the work of Sfar himself: malleable paneling, large almond eyes, lush coloring. Oubrerie’s attempts to create emotionally evocative posturing and characterization is successful, and his cartoonish style is especially effective with exaggerated personalities and situational comedy. The dramatic use of coloring is a high point in the book, and Oubrerie shows great skill in enhancing moods and themes. The lines are loose and lively but are drawn at a loss to anatomical precision. Characters often look physically flat, as if they are paper cut-outs of themselves pasted onto the vibrant background of the Ivory Coast. Oubrerie is a gifted artist, and his work is a great compliment to the promising storytelling talents of Abouet.

Aya follows the title character and her two friends leading typical teenage girl lives: they lie to their parents, sneak out to go to dance clubs, flirt and date. While sex seems to reside at the forefront of the minds of Abouet’s characters, it is in fact money and class that motivate them. Aya’s friends use sex as a means to escape their working class status; the men in the story use money to attract the attention of these and other women.

Aya, however, has little concern for sex or money and so is distinctively absent from Abouet’s principal plot lines. Instead, she exists more as a narrator, casually observing the antics of her friends and family, and unfortunately Abouet does not give Aya a voice of her own. Early in the novel, Aya asks her father if she can study to become a doctor, but he summarily dismisses the idea. The story quickly shifts focus and Abouet never revisits this opportunity for character development.

What makes Aya more than an after-school special about teen sex is the backdrop of the Ivory Coast’s culture and distinct class hierarchies. Abouet successfully sidesteps a didactic or moralistic tone, but she also manages to highlight the socioeconomic and cultural contexts that run behind the events in the story. She captures class in the expansive (and patently exaggerated) pink house of Aya’s father’s boss; she reveals complex gender relations in the interactions of Aya and her friends with men young and old, familiar and anonymous; and she slowly unfolds the culture of the Ivory Coast, exhibiting a slang term here, a piece of clothing there.

At times, this background is so subtly interwoven within the tale that it becomes invisible. And while it is admirable to foreground cultural similarity to avoid the reification of Ivorian life, Aya at times suffers from a lack of individuality. Without an emphasis on the politics inherent in the story, Aya would be no different, and possibly less interesting, than any tale of adolescent life. It makes sense then that the title character has little personality; just as she could devote more time to developing Aya, Abouet could do more to bring into the open the conflicts and hierarchies of the Ivory Coast (i.e., the institutional forces at odds both within the country and between it and the West, especially France). Sfar claims that “Aya is a very political book”—but if Aya is political, it is only indirectly so and could be helped by making politics even more central.

That said, Aya has its shining moments. The final party scene is where Aya truly hits its stride. Old men dance with young girls, the rich are disdainful of the poor, and everyone enjoys the beer—appropriately so since the book opens with a beer commercial. Overall, Aya is an enjoyable read. Funny, playful, and light-hearted, it is a commendable first foray into comics and an entertaining examination of Ivorian teenage life.