28 January 2023 The prize, awarded annually on the sidelines of the International Comics Festival, will be awarded to Russian exile Victoria Lomasko, a critic of the Russian government, for the 2023 edition.
The exiled Russian cartoonist Victoria Lomasko won on Saturday the prize for artistic courage, awarded each year on the sidelines of the International Comics Festival held from 26 to 29 January in Angoulême (south-west France).
The 44-year-old comic book artist is known for her critical view of society and power in Russia and other former Soviet republics, which has been featured in reports published by several foreign media.
In February, she published in French La Dernière Artiste Soviétique, a comic book that describes the totalitarian vestiges of the USSR, 30 years after its collapse.
An anti-censorship prize
Victoria Lomasko left Russia in March 2022, just after the invasion of Ukraine. She now lives in Germany, the prize jury said in a statement.
The prize was created in 2016 by the promoters of the Angoulême "Off of Off", under the name of "prize for artistic courage", in order to reward an author defying censorship. It has rewarded authors from Tunisia, Turkey, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria and Morocco.
