Kirjahaku

Admitted to a home for the elderly because he suffers from Alzheimer's disease, for Ernest community life feels like an ordeal. But soon he accepts his new environment and decides to fight to escape from giving in to his awful destiny. For the author, the human community is like a library where books are piled up in mountains populated by yellowing paper of dreams and fantasies.

Retired bank manager Emilio, suffering from Alzheimer's, is taken to an assisted living home by his son. He befriends his roommate Miguel, an overconfident ladies' man. Together, they employ clever tricks to keep the doctors from noticing Emilio's ongoing deterioration -- and keep him from being transferred to the dreaded confinement of the top floor of the facility. (Better to die than to end up there. Their determination to stay active as individuals and maintain their dignity culminates in an adventurous escape.

Francisco, a wounded, despairing sixteen-year-old Republican guard in the Spanish Civil War, is trying to flee to freedom by crossing the French border. In his escape, he encounters an old remote lighthouse, far from the warring factions. He is granted shelter by Telmo, the aging operator of the lighthouse. As Francisco recuperates, Telmo s tales of epic adventurers who sailed the lost seas and discovered worlds unknown reignite the spark of life in the young soldier. By one of the most brilliant new talents in comic art in Spain, author of the world-wide bestseller Wrinkles.

Miguel Ruiz is a Spanish veteran exiled in France who was a member of "La Nueve" ("The Nine"), a company of men that went straight from fighting for their homeland in the Spanish Civil War to battles spanning the globe in WWII. Their years-long trek across Europe and Africa was spurred on by their love for their country and their hatred for brutal dictatorships. Roca uses the composite character Ruiz's "memories" to tell a story that's an ode to a generation that bravely stood up to, and beat back, violent fascism.

At 40, cartoonist Paco Roca has finally achieved his childhood dream -- to spend all day at home in his pajamas However, his blissful, loungewear-clad reverie is beset with a host of mundane problems: He dreads small talk with "the world's biggest bore," but his excuses and white lies are finally catching up with him. When good friends breaks up, taking either side could lead to social disaster. The simple mission to change his train ticket descends into an impossibly complicated, Kafkaesque affair. And worst of all, his partner keeps hanging the toilet paper roll the wrong way In the vein of sitcoms like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Roca's comic vignettes brilliantly satirize the pesky pitfalls of modern-day life. Like most of us, Roca's alter ego just wants to be liked and to do the right thing, but finds that through crippling indecision, cowardly behavior, and the absurd machinations of the universe, he is usually thwarted. The ensuing situations he finds himself embroiled in are as hilarious as they are often painfully relatable.

It all starts with a photograph: an ordinary scene of a young woman and her family picnicking at a Valencian beach in 1947. Now in her twilight years, Antonia cherishes this photo dearly; it holds the memories of her upbringing, her family -- the key to her Eden. Taking off from this routine family outing, cartoonist Paco Roca paints a heartfelt portrait of his mother's formative years. This delicate portrayal of a humble family is at once an intimate biographical story and a broader reflection of the hardscrabble existence many faced in post-war Spain. Antonia and her family soldier through constant hunger, the shady dealings of the black market, traumas of war and parental abuse, and the oppressive atmosphere wrought by the Catholic church and Franco's authoritarian regime -- and yet, they find oases of joy and wonder in cinema, imagination, and small acts of kindness. Roca is known the world over for his quietly powerful graphic novels, from Twists of Fate to The House, and this latest masterwork may just be his magnum opus. In Return to Eden, Roca manages to charge quotidian life with rare poignancy, in all its daily struggles and daydreams, and readers will come away deeply affected.

Da den pensjonerte banksjefen Emilio får Alzheimers, må han flytte på aldershjem. Der blir han blant annet kjent med Miguel, en gatesmart herremann som hjelper ham med å skjule de tiltagende hukommelsesproblemene han har, og forklarer ham den nye verdenen han nå skal leve i og gjør ham kjent med menneskene som også bor der, og livene de har bak seg. «Med hodet i skyene» er en historie om en alvorlig og uhelbredelig sykdom som rammer så altfor mange mennesker og deres pårørende, men den berører temaet med både galgenhumor og ømhet og viser hvordan livet kan fortsette selv etter at minnene forsvinner. For denne tegneserien vant Paco Roca den nasjonale spanske tegneserieprisen Premio Nacional del Cómic etter utgivelsen i 2007. Det er første gang Paco Roca oversettes til norsk.

En serieroman om alzheimer och vänskap När den pensionerade bankdirektören Emilio får alzheimer måste han flytta in på ett äldreboende. En vänskap växer fram mellan Emilio och rumskamraten Miguel, som hjälper honom att dölja sina tilltagande minnesproblem för personalen. Vi får också möta de andra på boendet, som uppvisar olika symptom på demens, trovärdigt skildrade av Paco Roca.