Nine Antico wins the Artémisia prize for women's comics for Madonnas and Whores

The Artémisia Grand Prix for women's comics was awarded Tuesday to Nine Antico for Madonnas and Whores, we learned from the jury on Wednesday.

The jury praised in a press release “an essential album for the history of female and feminist comics”. “The talented and prolific Nine Antico allows us to see, and to think, the female condition in the macho world of 20th century Italy, not fundamentally different from the next one,” he said. Nine Antico, 42, is one of the rising stars of French comics. An exhibition will be dedicated to him at the Angoulême International Comics Festival from January 25 to 28.

In Madonnas and Whores, Nine Antico paints the portrait of three women with true destinies who lived in Italy in the 20th century. The first, Agata, is sent by her father to a sanatorium to escape the public scandal triggered by the assassination of her mother by her lover. The second, Lucia, is shorn and excluded from social life at the end of the Second World War for having slept with a German soldier. The last, Rosalia, is placed under witness protection after giving up the names of several mafiosi from her village. Societal values, determination, courage and innocence clash in this comic book with a powerful story.

Founded in 2007, the Artémisia association fights for the visibility of women in the world of comics. In France, every January 9, the birthday of the feminist philosopher and novelist Simone de Beauvoir, she distinguishes an album scripted and/or drawn by one or more women.

It distributes other prizes whose names change with each edition. This year the Mauvaisesherbes prize went to Joanna Folivéli for Devenir, the Poetry-Mixed prize to Bérengère Delaporte for Grande Escapee, the Humor prize to Zelba for Le Grand Incident and the Survireuse prize to Lili Sohn and Élodie Lascar for Sultana.