Voloj, Julian

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Havana, Digital Archival Print, 16×20, 2009

Julian Voloj is a New York based storyteller whose award-winning work has been featured in The New York Times, Rolling Stone Magazine, The Washington Post and many other national and international publications. Born to Colombian parents in Germany, where he studied literature and linguistics, he moved to New York in 2004. While his photographic work explores questions of identity and heritage, forgotten heroes and hidden figures have been a leitmotif in his non-fiction graphic novels.

His award-winning debut graphic novel “Ghetto Brother” (2015, illustrated by Claudia Ahlering) tells the tale of an iconic gang truce that paved the way for hip hop to emerge in the South Bronx. It was named by Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz in the New York Times one of the best books of 2016.

“Joe Shuster, The Artist Behind Superman” (2018, illustrated by Thomas Campi) puts Shuster’s life into the wider context of the American comic book industry and pays homage to the many forgotten pioneers of the medium. The book won several international awards and was so far translated into seven languages.

“Basquiat” (2019, illustrated by Soren Mosdal), a portrait of an artist struggling with fame and addition, was listed by the influential Comics Beat as one of the most important 100 graphic novels of the last decade.

“Clayton: Godfather of Lower East Side Documentary” (2020), an anthology in the tradition of Harvey Pekar’s “American Splendor,” is an intimate portrait of the ‘forgotten’ activist Clayton Patterson, who has, as his friend Ai WeiWei puts it, “relentlessly devoted himself to a kind of culture that examines authority” and who Anthony Bourdain described as “archivist of all things Lower East Side.”

Abrams is publishing his graphic novel “Black and White” (illustrated by Wagner Willian) on the chess wunderkind turned public enemy Bobby Fischer.

Graphic Novels

“Not a New York Love Story” (2020) with Andreas Gefe

https://editions-sarbacane.com/bd/not-a-new-york-love-story

“Bill Finger” (2020) with Erez Zadok