Prisoner 155

April 23, 2018
Anarchist Simón Radowitzky is given his due in this generous, sprawling graphic biography stippled with idealism. Forced from his childhood Russian shtetl by rampaging Cossacks, Radowitzky becomes acquainted with the anti-Czarist anarchist resistance before being sent by his father to Buenos Aires. There, he falls in with “anarchists, Jews, and some socialists” and, at a march, is assaulted by thugs. (“It was the same story... I was still among Cossacks, nobles, and a czar.”) After killing a police colonel who had led the bloody attack, Radowitzky is shipped to a remote prison and locked up for 21 years, “damaged and lost at the end of the world.” A cause célèbre, he spends much of his time in solitary confinement. Later, he fights the Soviets and fascists in the Spanish Civil War. The line art is fine and painterly, with coloring in black, white, and grays marked with unsettling bursts of pink watercolor wash that highlights both blood and sunsets. Although the story doesn’t unpack the motivations behind Radowitzky’s ideological commitment as fully as it could, his heroic, humble, and unbreakable dedication to antiauthoritarianism is evoked with fiery grace. This graphic treatment of a complicated hero is an epic of resistance and humanity.

A graphic account of the life of Simón Radowitzky, a little-known Ukrainian-Argentine radical.Radowitzky, a Jew born in Ukraine in 1891, grew up amid a turbulent and violent political landscape during the time of the Cossacks and their pogroms. He was fortunate enough to attend school for a short period, learning to read, something that became a lifelong passion. Eventually, Radowitzky fled the genocide for Buenos Aires to be with his cousin and brother. While in Argentina, he aligned with a band of anarchists and was later imprisoned for assassinating a corrupt military official. Radowitzky's life in prison (where he was known as Prisoner 155) was filled with beatings, corruption, and mistreatment, but he stayed steadfast to his beliefs. Argentine-born Spanish graphic novelist Comotto (¡Cómo me pica!, 2016, etc.) utilizes an evocative, stark black-and-white palette smattered with visually arresting splashes of a dramatic blood red in his striking line-and-wash illustrations. The narrative moves a bit disjointedly between Radowitzky's past and present with few visual cues, demanding a close reading. While ample biographical information is provided, there is little overview of the events of the time period, leaving unfamiliar readers to explore on their own. These details aside, Comotto's work is extremely compelling and a must-read for history aficionados looking for a deep dive into a lesser-known historical figure.A gripping, albeit ambitious, account of a recondite dissident. (map, postscript, biographical sketches, sources) (Graphic biography. 16-adult)

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