Thank you to Europe Comics for making available a digital edition of Veerle Hildebrandt’s ‘Black Paradise’ in exchange for an honest review.

This graphic novel with script and art by Hildebrandt is semi-autobiographical. As a child she had lived with her family in Nigeria for some years in the early 1990s. In 2016 Hildebrandt had written ‘Joyride’ based on those experiences. It appears that ‘Black Paradise’ expands on those themes in a fictional context.

In the story Hans Wagner moves his family to Lagos in order to take a high-paying position. He and his wife, Katie, enjoy the luxury of their new life yet find the ingrained racism within the expatriate community upsetting. Yet while they speak up about it their attitudes are shrugged off as naive by longer term residents.

Lisa, their daughter, is at first upset about relocating but soon makes friends and joins a pony club. However, the stress associated with Han’s job creates tension between her parents that are complicated by their housekeeper’s attentions towards Hans. In addition, the country is in political turmoil.

Hildebrandt’s artwork is very striking and I took time to visit her website to gain a sense of her wider artistic style.

This was clearly a family drama that in places made uncomfortable reading in terms of the casual racism and sense of unexamined white privilege expressed by many characters. At first, I thought the title was meant to be ironic given the realities of the community but it also is the name of a ‘gentleman’s club’ frequented by the corporate types that Hans works with. To his credit Hans is uncomfortable but is mocked and told off by his boss for his idealism.

‘Black Paradise’ is something a coming of age story though the format of graphic novel only seems to allow a reporting of the events that shape Lisa’s experience over the kind of examination a more conventional novel would provide. Still, it has its powerful moments and the art expresses the contrasts of life in the country during that period.

While it’s not really the kind of graphic novel that I usually read, I found it interesting and quite sobering.

A fictionalized expansion of the themes and Nigerian locations that Veerle Hildebrandt previously visited in her graphic memoir Joyride, Black Paradise tells the story of a German family's brief work posting in Lagos in the early '90s through the eyes of a child. Hildebrandt's art is a brilliant mixture of realism and exaggeration, with a colour palate that mirrors the mood of the scenes.

The story follows the family from their hopeful arrival (they're thrilled by the pool in their company house and horrified by their colleagues' neo-colonial-type racism and classism), through their growing bitterness as they become the people they previously were shocked by until they return to Germany.

The book feels like an honest recounting of that style of expat life as filtered through the eyes of a child, but for that same reason I would warn anyone looking for an uplifting story away. The blunt racism and paternalism of the expats is presented without commentary, so anyone looking for those attitudes to be explicitly challenged will be disappointed. As such, I would recommend this for a mature audience (and as a side note for anyone reading the book in public, it also includes quite a bit of sexual partial nudity - the Black Paradise of the title is a strip club).

I read an e-ARC via NetGalley.

I was excited to read Black Paradise because it was graphic novel set in Nigeria and based on the book description seemed to have an intriguing story line. Yet, I walked away very disappointed. The only thing beautiful about the book were the illustrations, which by the way were superior. What I found was a book filled with negative tropes about Africa and the people. The premise was that Hans and his family relocate to Nigeria because he has a great job opportunity. He and his wife, Katie, thought it would be a great opportunity to live in paradise. But that is not what they found. To illustrate this, the author chose to focus on all the negative aspects of Nigeria including the poverty, political unrest, and corruption in business. That's fair because there are those aspects in Nigeria. However, what I found disheartening is that the author Veerle Hildebrandt decided to create a story that played up all the negative stereotypes of African/black people. At first, I thought she was going to use this book to debunk those stereotypes because she initially had Hans and Katie being uncomfortable associating with the expatriates who made racist remarks and treated the local people with disdain and disrespect. Yet, they began to buy into the thinking as well. The Nigerian women were sexualized. According to the expatriate wives that's all the black women were about. In fact, they warn Katie to keep an eye on her maid because all of the men were sleeping with black women. And true enough, her housekeeper is the initiator in an affair with Hans. If they weren't a maid, then they were strippers. All of the men frequent a sex club called "Black Paradise". The Nigerian men are slow and backward thinking. For example, the children ask the gardener to use his shovel to bury a bird they found dead covered in ants. He says "Bury a dead bird? You should it instead!" The author later shows the gardener digging it back up and the kids question--did we eat it? And a stereotypical book about Africa wouldn't be complete without including the trope of "black magic" because aren't these people backward in believing in hexes. And the author doesn't disappoint making "juju" an important part to the story. After reading the novel , I was left wondering what was the point of the book. It definitely was not to humanize people that have historically been made one dimensional. If the author had chosen another country outside of Africa, would this have been how she would depicted a paradise gone wrong? I will never know. What I do know is that I cannot endorse this book.

I truly tried to enjoy the book,especially because the illustrations were intriguing.

Even if the author was probably trying to emphasise some characters’ traits, I found the plot somehow racist and so full of stereotypes that I could not enjoy reading the story.

I dont think I have ever read a book about Europeans living and working in Nigeria and so I was intrigued to find this graphic novel telling the story of a German family who move to Lagos. The husband and wife are very idealistic about life in Nigeria but six months down the line their family is stretched to the limit and work and life is stressful.

Life in Nigeria is materially comfortable but restricted. Their young daughter goes to a German school where she struggles with her studies. The wife finds she doesnt get on with the other German expatriate wives who treat their Nigerian servants like dirt and have a huge dose of white superiority.

The country is unstable and this makes it hard to do business and then the husband decides to have a fling with the servant girl. What strikes the reader is the way the lives of the expatriates are so limited. They might have wealth but they struggle to cope and their lives do not go beyond the self-imposed barriers of their lives. The only time the Germans break down the barriers and get to know Nigerians is when the men go to a strip club. (Insert eye roll here).

As I read this I was counting down how long the family would last in Nigeria. No spoliers here so you will need to read it for yourself. The artwork was ok but it was the content of the story that intrigued me. It felt as though the author had experienced life in Lagos himself.

The wife observes the poverty and dire circumstances in which many Nigerians live but it isn't this which truly upsets her. As she observes the erosion of her marriage she realises that she needs to act to save her marriage and family, and that means a return to Germany but she knows she will have to plan a way out for them.

It is a fascinating and irritating depiction of expatriate life and a lesson for anyone who thinks that the grass is greener on the other side. A place may look like a paradise, it may even be a paradise but there were also dangers in the garden of paradise. It is a really interesting story with good artwork.

Copy provided by Europe Comics in exchange for an unbiased review.

'Black Paradise' with script and art by Veerle Hildebrandt is about a German family that moves to Nigeria and what happens.

When Hans gets a new business opportunity, he moves his wife and daughter to Nigeria. Their house is a walled compound with barbed-wire. They find out it's available because the previous occupants had to vacate when a tank was driven in to the house. They have a friendly relationship with their housekeeper, Wanda, but the other whites treat the blacks as lesser. The men frequent a nightclub for fun and to bribe others for work. Things go from bad to worse for them until they leave the country and head back to Germany.

The story is mainly told from the daughter's perspective, but she approaches the environment from privilege and that attitude doesn't seem to differ. Perhaps a better perspective would have been from the housekeeper's viewpoint. The art is loose in style and not my favorite.

I received a review copy of this graphic novel from Europe Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this graphic novel.

This novel contained a lot of racism, adultery, and denial about interpersonal relationships. A German family moves to Lagos, Nigeria and almost succumbs to its environment. It does make you wonder about environment influencing behavior.

The development of the plot was better than I expected. I am not a frequent graphic novel reader, except for a close study of Maus. Occasionally reading graphic novels brings me a movie feeling. The drawings are nice, suitable for young adults. I like the sections too. Plot twist is the most applaudable part in the book, where takes a step back to the past and tell what actually happened. The aesthetic of the novel is a bit remote from my taste, The depth of the book is there, but with graphic as a method, I feel it is hard to convey the profoundness of the racial issue. Calling the book Black Paradise, I feel it should have a bit more contrast, at least color wise. In addition, the racism thing is mainly expressed through the conversation, which I'd venture to think it is inadequate. The style of this graphic novel gives little room to imagination, which to me is a down point as well.

Not the direction I thought this book was going to take. In the end, I felt it was still fairly racist; which is not what I expected at all. I wouldn't recommend this book.

Post-colonialism isn't much better than being a colony, espically when the white men are still in control, or are trying to be in control.

Hans and his family go from Germany to Nigeria to work for a company that bribes the local government to get them fuel and other things they need to run their factories. Hans thinks he can change things, but he finds that things work differently there.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-5273" src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-09-at-9.26.21-PM.png" alt="Black Paradise" />

And the wives treat the black locals like they are less than nothing, their maids must obey without question.

It is all a rather depressing story.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Black Paradise was an interesting illustrated story and the art was colorful and eye-catching. Another polished graphic novel from Europe Comics.

The artwork was absolutely to my taste, however both the plot and the character development left a lot to be desired.