Rutu Modan Views
Rutu Modan was born in Tel Hashomer, Israel, in 1966. Her father was Prof. Baruch Modan, a cancer researcher who served as director general of the Israeli Health Ministry in the 1980s. Her mother was Prof. Michaela Modan, an epidemiologist specializing in diabetes research. Her sister is Dana Modan, an actress and writer. The family moved to Afeka in north Tel Aviv when she was ten.[1]
From May to October 2007, several of Modan's graphic stories were featured on the New York Times website in a visual blog , translated by Ishai Mishory. The six stories are all memoirs involving Modan herself, and her family. Many of them involve her paternal grandmother, who grew up in Warsaw and fled to Israel after the German occupation of Poland, with Rutu’s father and uncle in tow.
Rutu Modan is also the illustrator of two children’s books: Dad Runs Away With The Circus, by writer Etgar Keret (whose short fiction I adore) and Where Is by writer Tamar Bergman. Both are quite good and quite beautiful, though as children ’s books they dons’t really have the depth of her comics and graphic novel work. Modan also has a handful of works that have not been translated into English as yet (well, not that I can find anyway).
Exit Wounds is worth picking up at your library if for no other reason than to introduce yourself to Rutu Modan. Ultimately, I was left unsure how I was supposed to grow as a person from reading this, or even which of the emotions I did experience were most important to the text. Whether you decide to read this work or not, fans of graphica should keep Rutu Modan on their radar, as she has all the potential to produce something special.
Rutu Modan Images
