The Graphic Novels of Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Akash Belsare (University of Illinois at Springfield)

Ed. by Lori Marie Campbell-Tanner, University of Pittsburgh
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

Date of occurrence c.2000-

Places

Canada (Location)

Genres and Modes

Children's Literature
Graphic / Comic

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Recommended Reading

Cousins and co-authors, writer Mariko Tamaki and illustrator Jillian Tamaki have collaborated on three young/new adult graphic novels to date, including

Skim

(2008),

This One Summer

(2014), and

Roaming

(2023). From queer, Canadian born, and mixed-race creators – Mariko being of Japanese and Jewish descent, while Jillian is of Japanese and Egyptian descent – the Tamaki coming-of-age comics collectively engage with issues of race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality, girlhood, adolescence, and mental health. The Tamakis take an intersectional feminist approach to the traditional bildungsroman genre, not merely through the character development of their female protagonists, but by subverting its assimilatory conventions. As Mariko details in

The Horn Book Magazine

, theirs is a…

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3463 words

Citation: Belsare, Akash. "The Graphic Novels of Mariko and Jillian Tamaki". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 August 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19760, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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The Graphic Novels of Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

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