My Ultimate Best Books 2025 | A Top 10
Now that we’re entering the holiday season, it’s an excellent time for reflection.And what a year it’s been. I changed jobs, got married, and bought
We all know how English literature by English writers is easily accessible. And it has been for a long time because a large part of the readership and publishing industry comes from English-speaking countries, especially the U.S. and the U.K.
It was only after the 1960s that publishers started bringing European, Latin American, South Asian, and Japanese works into the English market. And who can forget the Latin American Boom of the 1960s–70s?
But comics have been crossing borders long before, without the need for translators or publishers.
Just to give you some perspective, Astro Boy from Japan, Tintin from Belgium, Asterix from France, Mafalda from Argentina, and many others were global phenomena. This is very much unlike English translations of non-English literature.
I think it’s because images transcend language barriers. Also, comics tell stories about history, society, culture, politics, and in between. This is again very unlike American superheroes.
This is exactly what I am going to discuss today. Comics to read from different countries that touch on many social and political themes.
Persepolis is a comic memoir by Marjane Satrapi that recounts her childhood and adulthood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. She uses stark black-and-white illustrations to show political upheaval and how it was for women to grow under oppression.
Satrapi lives in Tehran, witnesses protests, bombings, and the loss of personal freedoms. Eventually, her parents send her to Austria for safety and education.
There, she struggles with cultural shock, loneliness, while grappling with her identity as an Iranian abroad. Eventually, she returns to Iran, where she faces the challenges of life under strict social and religious rules.
Persepolis was a global success with huge cultural impact. Satrapi co-directed her comic book into a film, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes. It was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Iran is a great country if you want to watch great works on social and political issues. You can start with the best Iranian movies.
Virus Tropical is another autobiographical graphic novel by Colombian-Ecuadorian artist Paola Gaviria. Paola Gaviria is her pen name. The comic book follows her life from her unexpected birth to her adult life.
It follows the life of Paola in a predominantly female household in Quito, Ecuador, and Cali, Colombia in the 1980s and 90s. She comes of age in that era, experiencing sexuality, patriarchy, drug use, and her search for identity in a conservative society.
Virus Tropical was also adapted into an animated film, which Powerpaola co-wrote. Just like one of the best graphic novels to read, the movie is also in black and white. You can stream the movie for free on YouTube.
If you want to enjoy great Latin American works, check out the best Latin American movies.
Tales of the Orishas is one of the best graphic novels to read by Brazilian artist Hugo Canuto. Canuto reimagines the heroic epic Yoruba pantheon for which he took inspiration from the African diaspora and the religion of Candomblé. I interviewed Hugo Canuto recently about this comic book and his other works and inspiration.
Its central conflict is about the Orishas, especially Shango, the god of fire and thunder. They are facing a powerful invading force that threatens the cosmic balance. With this action-driven narrative, the comic places Afro-Brazilian mythology in a great storytelling format.
Canuto fuses diasporic aesthetics with the style of American superhero comics, which he also shares as an inspiration with me on YouTube. This choice transforms deities such as Shango and Ogun into Black superheroes. If you like such a style of work, you should also check out Beserat Debebe’s Etan Comics.
Meanwhile, don’t forget to check some of the best Brazilian books and Brazilian movies.
Alpha: Abidjan to Gare du Nord is a collaboration between French-Gabonese writer Bessora and French illustrator Barroux.
It is about Alpha Coulibaly, a cabinet-maker from Abidjan on an 18-month trek to Paris. After failing to obtain a visa, he attempts the journey overland and by sea in hopes of reuniting with his wife and son.
Along the journey, he documents the corruption, exploitation, and violence while crossing Mali, Algeria, and Morocco. He meets other migrants who are travelling with their own motivations and tragedies.
You can view some of the illustrations by Barroux in this Guardian review. Overall, this is one of the best comics to read on migration and identity.
Lord of the Flies: The Graphic Novel is the first graphic adaptation of William Golding’s 1954 classic. It was created by Dutch comic artist Aimée de Jongh for the novel’s 70th anniversary and nominated for the Carnegie Medal for Illustration.
It is about a group of British schoolboys stranded on an island after a plane crash. Initially, they attempt to organize themselves and create a functioning society. However, as fear and power struggles grow, their fragile order begins to break down, and the boys descend into savagery.
De Jongh uses full-colour illustrations to emphasize the contrast between the island’s beauty and the boys’ deteriorating moral world. The adaptation has sold over 100,000 copies, making it one of the best comics to read.
Want to read more from the Netherlands and Belgium? Here are some of my favourite Dutch books that you must enjoy with the finest of Belgium beers.
Burma Chronicles is a third autobiographical graphic novel in our best comic books by Canadian cartoonist Guy Delisle. It is about his year-long stay in Yangon under a repressive military regime in Myanmar. He blends travelogue, social observation, and subtle political commentary.
The narrative is about Delisle as he deals with local customs, bureaucracy, and the challenges of expatriate life, all while raising his young child. Through humorous, candid vignettes, he explores the stark contrasts between his Western expectations and Burmese culture.
Also, through subtle ways, how authoritarian control permeates everyday interactions. And it perfectly balances light-hearted anecdotes with broader political and social tensions of the country.
Aya: Life in Yop City is a comic book series by Ivorian writer Marguerite Abouet and artist Clément Oubrerie. He wrote the series to counter the prevailing Western media narrative of Africa as only war, famine, and poverty stricken region. It was also adapted into an animated film with a César Award nomination.
Aya is a 19-year-old young woman aspiring to become a doctor. Meanwhile, her friends Adjoua and Bintou are more interested in fashion and romance. These subplots address social issues such as infidelity, class differences, gender inequality, and patriarchal family expectations.
The series won the Best First Album Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2006. This comic book has also been adapted into a movie of the same name.
The Rabbi’s Cat is one of the best graphic novels to read by French cartoonist Joann Sfar. This comic book covers religion, colonialism, language, and identity with wit. What makes this interesting is its multicultural inclusion of Algerian life, where Arabic, French, and Jewish traditions intermix.
It is set in 1930s Algeria during the final decades of French colonial rule. It all begins when a rabbi’s cat swallows his master’s parrot and suddenly starts speaking and wants to convert to Judaism.
This gets even more interesting when the newly outspoken cat interacts with the rabbi, his daughter Zlabya. The cat’s blunt honesty often exposes the contradictions of faith, colonial attitudes, and community politics.
Amid all this chaos, there’s a lot of satire, tenderness, and theological debate. It was also adapted into the animated film of the same name.
Joe Sacco is highly regarded as the pioneer of comic journalism. Palestine is a landmark work of investigative journalism in a comic format that won him a prestigious American Book Award.
He draws heavily from his time spent traveling through the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the early 1990s.
It focuses on the daily reality of military occupation, and documents the hardship, checkpoints and curfews. Sacco uses vignette-style reports of his experiences and his interviews with ordinary Palestinians.
The plot doesn’t have a single story. Instead he uses firsthand testimonies to build a powerful mosaic of life in refugee camps and segregated cities like Ramallah and Nablus.
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is one of the best graphic novels to read by Emil Ferris. She uses investigative narrative to explore structural social issues in Karen’s community, including class inequality, racial tension, and queer identity.
The graphic novel is a notebook of ten-year-old Karen Reyes in 1960s Chicago. At her early age, classic horror imagery fascinates her. In turn, these monsters help her investigate the death of her upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg, a Holocaust survivor.
Ferris has drawn the entire comic book using ballpoint pens and colored pencils on ruled paper. This gives dense page layouts which feels like a personal sketchbook.
As I argued in the introduction, the best thing about great comic books is that they are universal. You can enjoy them easily because there’s no need for language to deliver emotions.
Similarly, unlike other English literature, which took a time to become universal in terms of themes and genres; comic books have always been like that.
And that’s what this comics to read list tries to deliver. If you have any best graphic novels to read that you would like to share, please do!
You can search for such graphic novels as Graphic Nonfiction, Comics Journalism, or Graphic Memoir.
The most cost-effective way to read international comics is through your local public library’s digital services. Platforms like Libby (OverDrive) and Hoopla partner with libraries to offer free access to comic novels.
The two essential file formats for digital comics are CBZ and CBR. To open the pages, you can use comic reader software like CDisplayEx or YACReader.
You can look for following publishers known for high-quality translations, such as Drawn & Quarterly, Fantagraphics, SelfMadeHero, and NBM Publishing.
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