In the running in Angoulême: A childhood of straw or the bitter loss of innocence

Ernst is a little boy born in the 1930s. Among a family of six brothers and sisters, the little Swiss boy raised on the family farm lives according to the tasks assigned to him. Between feeding the animals, making haystacks or watching the cows in the pasture, he enjoys moments of pleasure with his brothers and sisters. Despite the chores and extreme poverty, Ernst is a happy child, because for him “it is normal to work every day even when you are a child”. But when in 1949, the 11-year-old child was placed in a nearby peasant home, in exchange for a salary paid to his parents, room and board, a harsh reality replaced the carefree happy days.

Lika Nüssli was inspired by her father’s memories for A Childhood of Straw. “I always knew that as a child, my father had been placed in care by his parents,” the author writes in the preamble. He never told much about this time, or always the same stories. I thought he didn't want to talk about it anymore. Until I asked him.” The story of the father illustrated by the daughter creates a breathtaking album, both in substance and in form which does not bother with any box.

In a few words, Lika Nüssli takes the reader to a farm in eastern Switzerland, in 1943, within a destitute but resolutely happy family. With her raw and expressionist line, the designer renders with vivacity and intensity this story mixed with deep felicity and harshness. Inspired by Swiss peasant paintings, it portrays a visual universe intense in emotions.

A first part recounting the good times spent as a family, makes palpable the simple joys of having the right to a single whole egg in the year (a precious good that only the rich can afford), of life in the open air surrounded by animals, rationed meals shared with family, games invented with empty spools of thread. Despite the deprivations, harmony reigns in this refuge imbued with unfailing vital energy. Created like rural paintings, the boards inspire rural serenity.

More bitter, the second part tells a completely different story where loneliness, lack of affection, sadness, physical abuse, the pangs of hunger and exhausting work punctuate the four years of the young hero placed in a peasant family. . Graphically, the designer offers the strongest pages of the album. Between refined and overloaded pages, it brilliantly illustrates Ernst's torments and descent into hell.

The end of the album is particularly impressive, deploying more than twenty silent plates rich in eloquence to evoke the loss of innocence. Until the moment when the protagonist finds speech and words to defy his father and free himself from the yoke of his owners. And sail towards other adventures and a brighter future. With A Straw Childhood, Lika Nüssli knows how to honor and highlight the evocative power of drawing to retrace this stolen childhood.

A Childhood of Straw, Lika Nüssli, Atrabile, 26 euros.