'Modotti', by Ángel de la Calle, will be translated into French

Vertige Graphic (France) has acquired translation rights of Ángel de la Calle's graphic novel 'Modotti. A Woman of the 20th Century'.

Tina Modotti (in the picture by Edward Weston, in 1923) was a woman of the 20th Century: photographer, actress, muse to writers and artists, politically engaged, free, poliphacetic, and witness to many important events and artistical landmarks.

Editorial SinSentido published in Spanish a graphic biography of this extraordinary character created (text & illustrations) by Ángel de la Calle: 'Modotti: Una mujer del siglo XX' 

De la Calle tells us about Modotti's life, a continuing adventure: A beautiful Hollywood star at an early age, she moved to the post-revolutionary Mexico with her friend and lover Edward Weston (now an acclaimed photographer) where she became actively engaged with the communist party, took thousands of photographs and also became the lover of almost as many men... she also was friends with artists of her time such as Mayakovsky, Bernard Tavern, Antonio Machado, Neruda, Diego Rivera, John Dos Passos, Frida Khalo...

She lived her time, from the glamourous 'Belle Epoque' to the Europe of the Totalitarism in the 1930s (travelling to Paris, Berlin, Moscow…) and lived in Spain during the Civil War. She then flew back to Mexico escaping from Franco. She died there in 1942, alone and in a taxi. 

In 'Modotti' Ángel de la Calle becomes himself a character who incidentally finds a picture of Tina Modotti and starts investigating about her life. Thus, the book becomes not only a biography of the photographer but also a hooking voyage of discovery, admiration and devotion towards her personality and her work.

Tina Modotti's life, now revisited by Ángel de la Calle in this magnificent graphic novel, stands alone as an example, and a lesson, of personal freedom and engagement.

‘Modotti’ has received countless awards in Spain, amongst them to the ‘Best Work and Best Script at the Barcelona Comic Salon in 2004’; ‘Best script in 2006’ and the prestigious Premio de la Crítica a Mejor obra española (2006).

Translation rights have already bee sold to: Italy (001 Edizioni), Germany (Rotbuch) and Brazil (Conard). 

Poet Pablo Neruda composed Tina Modotti's epitaph, part of which can also be found on her tombstone:

Pure your gentle name, pure your fragile life,

Bees, shadows, fire, snow, silence and foam,

Combined with steel and wire and

Pollen to make up your firm

And delicate being.