Worm

From the iconic, award-winning artist and designer, a graphic memoir of leaving Cuba, becoming American, and fighting for freedom, here and there.

'Exhilarating, immensely powerful, gorgeous' PHILIPPE SANDS

'Belongs in the pantheon that MAUS built' PRINT MAGAZINE

'Shocking, brilliant, soul-shattering . . . this book is so good' CHIP KIDD

When Fidel Castro opened the Mariel harbour to let Cubans sail for America, Edel Rodriguez and his family took their chance. From the town of El Gabriel to the Mariel port to a rickety shrimping boat bound for Florida, they joined the 1980 boatlift, becoming 'worms', as Castro called the departing Cubans.

Years later, Edel Rodriguez has become one of the most prominent political artists of our age, hailed for his iconic work on the cover of Time and on jumbotrons around the world. In stunning visual detail, Worm tells his story - of a boyhood in Cold War Cuba, of a family's courage and displacement and of coming of age as an artist, activist, and American.

Exhilarating, immensely powerful, gorgeous, it really does open the imagination and sweep you up -- Philippe Sands, bestselling author of EAST WEST STREET and THE RATLINE
WORM is testament to the power of political art CREATIVE REVIEW
Shocking. Brilliant. Soul-shattering in its terrible beauty. In WORM, Edel Rodriguez rips open a heart-shaped window onto a hate-shaped world. I can't believe he survived it, but am deeply glad he did and was able to tell the tale. This book is so good it will likely be banned in Florida -- Chip Kidd, author of THE CHEESE MONKEYS
WORM has consumed me more than any memoir I've read before, and that is saying a lot. It belongs in the pantheon that Maus built -- Steven Heller Print Magazine
Fascinating and complex . . . A passionate firsthand account of historical events and a compelling coming-of-age tale in one Library Journal
A sharply observed document of totalitarianism and its discontents Kirkus (starred review)
WORM is a long and brilliant read, its artwork immediate and dramatic in its reduced palette of red, green, white and black, its writing tense and touched with a great talent for telling detail . . . A wise and life-stuffed memoir -- Will Steen Buzz Magazine
Uniquely positioned to comment on autocracies and authoritarianism, Rodriguez reveals his personal fears about the future of the United States, particularly after the Jan. 6 insurrection. He portrays the crowd on the Capitol much like the one in Havana in January 1959 that starts the novel, bringing it full-circle in a striking visual comparison -- Donna Edwards Associated Press

EDEL RODRIGUEZ was born in 1971 in Havana, Cuba. He received a B.F.A. in Painting from Pratt Institute in 1994 and an M.F.A. from Hunter College in 1998. He is the recipient of both a Gold and a Silver Medal for editorial illustration from the Society of Illustrators. His work has been featured on the covers of Time, the New Yorker and Der Spiegel; other clients include MTV, Pepsi, U.S. Postal Service, Nike, Rolling Stone, GQ, Playboy, Reader's Digest, National Geographic Traveler, the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Conde Naste Traveler, the Washington Post and the Losa Angeles Times.

Edel's artwork is in the collections of numerous institutions, including the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., as well as in many private collections.

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