»Everything I lay my hands on will be drawn on... It’s a way of expressing my thoughts without having to speak.«
There are texts that take you by surprise. You didn’t expect them, and you certainly weren’t looking for them. It might, in very rare moments, happen to a publisher when a manuscript arrives on his or her desk, and it might happen to a reader when he or she picks up a book. »Black Box Blues« by Ambra Durante is one of these rare surprises. Is »graphic novel« an apt description for this book? Perhaps, perhaps not. But in the end it doesn’t really matter – it is a work of such an intensity that the reader is immediately captivated, sensing that everything is at stake.
A nineteen-year-old writer and illustrator tells of the events that push here into her darkest moments – but more importantly of the things that keep her alive. She finds images and words for her despair, the fight against giving in to it and the thing
to hold on to. For times she seems to be on the outside, observing herself, and even discovering a kind of humour. But with a topic that serious Ambra Druante doesn’t resort to cursory consolation.
This is not an outside perspective, but an personal and existential attempt at self-rescue. Ambra Durante speaks only for herself. But perhaps she also reminds readers of situations they have lived through themselves. Perhaps it is presumptuous to say that a book like this helps us to gain a better understanding of people in a situation like this. Still it may
alleviate the feeling of helplessness from which many suffer when they experience it.
