Drawing the troubled artist abroad: Guy Delisle’s visual travelogues

This article interrogates the multiple roles Guy Delisle plays – author, narrator and commentator – all at once in his visual narratives: Shenzhen: A Travelogue from China (2006b), Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (2007b) and Burma Chronicles (2008). It examines how Delisle represents his interaction with foreign lands and people as well as the negative and positive impression left by travel through his first-person narrator, a troubled artist abroad. In particular, this article discusses three aspects of Delisle’s travelogues: personal perspective, non-linear narrative structure, and the artist’s visual reflection of his trips to China, North Korea and Burma during and after the travel. Combining textual narrative with visual representation in the form of comics, Delisle’s books introduce a new dimension to travel writing.