This fall Farrar Straus & Giroux is publishing Peter Sis' wordless graphic novel The Wall ($18, ISBN 0-374-34701-8), a coming of age saga set in Czechoslovakia that critics have compared with Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis.  While thematically it might appear that this oversize (9' x 12'), 56-page, full color graphic novel is 'Persepolis in Prague,' the techniques that Sis employs, which include using annotated illustrations, journals, maps and dreamscapes, are quite different from those employed by Satrapi.

Peter Sis is an internationally recognized writer and artist who has won the prestigious MacArthur Award (a.k.a. the 'genius grant'), and whose work has received acclaim from various sources including former Czech President Vaclav Havel who wrote of The Wall: 'Peter Sis's book is most of all about the will to live one's life in freedom and should be required reading for all those who take their freedom for granted.'