Talk to My Back – Drawn & Quarterly (2024)

Globe and Mail Top 5 Graphic Novels of 2022, Guardian Best Graphic Novels of 2022

"This early feminist manga follows a suburban Tokyo woman as she navigates her relationship with an emotionally distant husband, her two maturing daughters and the fear of having been 'thrown away inside that empty vessel called the household.'" — The New York Times

"This groundbreaking alternative manga moves with a spare poetry through daily routines and moments of solitude as a woman wrangles her children, chafes at the limitations of the housewife’s role and wonders where half her life has gone." — Guardian Best Graphic Novels of 2022

"Serialized in 1980s Japan, Yamada’s hushed vignettes about Chiharu’s home life – raising her daughters, enduring her husband’s casual disrespect, finding independence through work of her own – stood out in a male-oriented publishing landscape. Their measured, patient pace, and their steady attention to domestic detail, continue to be rare in comics today." — Globe and Mail Top 5 Graphic Novels of 2022

“The first English translation of these subtle stories of self-worth and domestic frustration is a revelation.” — The Guardian

"[Murasaki's] pioneering manga—mostly black-and-white and strikingly expressive—was some of the first to realistically confront the difficulties of womanhood, a feat for which she deserves wider, greater recognition." — Booklist, Starred Review

"Murasaki Yamada was one of the most acclaimed and groundbreaking women working in manga. Talk to my Back, serialized between 1981 and 1984, challenged domesticity, patriarchy and women’s roles in Japanese society." — Ms. Magazine

"Hauntingly genuine art." — BlogCritics

"Yamada’s housewife reminds us that a better future is possible, that even under the crushing weight of patriarchy, capital, everything that makes people casually inhuman to one another, a woman’s small hope just to be herself resounds and will always be beautiful - beautiful enough to love." — The Comics Journal

"This manga is unquestionably art from start to finish. It uses the medium to convey so much longing and resentment. It tackles topics that are distinctly adult, with sincerity and deftness." — Manga Librarian

"Defying conventions expected still by many manga fans, this will appeal best to manga-curious indie comics readers, especially fans of comics parenting chronicles by the likes of Keiler Roberts or Glynnis Fawkes." — Publishers Weekly

"To talk of feminism was difficult because it was a topic treated with much wariness, so for Murasaki to focus on a housewife’s depression, her reaction to infidelity, and her ambivalence about children was a ground-breaking act of artistic independence." — Broken Frontier