It's almost as much fun seeing them get into trouble as seeing how they then try to get out of it. But all their hijinks (yes, I just used the word "hijinks") don't turn out as planned. They secretly hook up with lovers on "reserved" tables in the market square at night (aka the "Thousand Star Hotel") and dream about marrying someone who can set them up with a nice house or even a business (I believe a beauty parlor was high on the list). Aya has aspirations of going to school to become a doctor, while her two friends are more interested in dancing and boys.
It focuses on Aya and her two friends, Adjoua and Bintou, as they live their lives in "Yop City", a working-class neighborhood of (at the time) prosperous Abidjan. (or teens in general, for that matter) and attempts to break the stereotype of Africa as an impoverished nation where all the kids are starving and/or in the midst of constant warfare. It's billed as being a graphic novel that shows that teens in Africa aren't so dissimilar to those in the U.S. Clément Oubrerie's warm colors and energetic, playful lines connect expressively with Marguerite Abouet's vibrant writing.Īya is a book about a teen-aged African girl living in the Ivory Coast during the seventies (a relative boom time). An unpretentious and gently humorous story of an Africa we rarely see-spirited, hopeful, and resilient- Aya won the 2006 award for Best First Album at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. It's a breezy and wryly funny account of the desire for joy and freedom, and of the simple pleasures and private troubles of everyday life in Yop City. At night, an empty table in the market square under the stars is all the privacy young lovers can hope for, and what happens there is soon everybody's business.Īya tells the story of its nineteen-year-old heroine, the studious and clear-sighted Aya, her easygoing friends Adjoua and Bintou, and their meddling relatives and neighbors. Who's to know that the Ivorian miracle is nearing its end? In the sun-warmed streets of working-class Yopougon, aka Yop City, holidays are around the corner, the open-air bars and discos are starting to fill up, and trouble of a different kind is about to raise eyebrows.
Family and friends gather at Aya's house every evening to watch the country's first television ad campaign promoting the fortifying effects of Solibra, "the strong man's beer." It's a golden time, and the nation, too-an oasis of affluence and stability in West Africa-seems fueled by something wondrous. war and famine, an Africa that endures despite everything because, as we say back home, life goes on." -Marguerite Abouet "That's what I wanted to show in Aya: an Africa without the.
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