Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir

By Bishakh Som

The meticulous artwork of transgender artist Bishakh Som gives us the rare opportunity to see the world through another lens. 

This exquisite graphic novel memoir by a transgender artist, explores the concept of identity by inviting the reader to view the author moving through life as she would have us see her, that is, as she sees herself. Framed with a candid autobiographical narrative, this book gives us the opportunity to enter into the author’s daily life and explore her thoughts on themes of gender and sexuality, memory and urbanism, love and loss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Street Noise Books
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781951491116

Bishakh Som

Bishakh Som is an Indian American trans femme visual artist and author. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Autostraddle, We’re Still Here, Beyond, vol. 2, The Strumpet, the Boston Review, Black Warrior Review, Vice, the Brooklyn Rail, Buzzfeed, Ink Brick, the Huffington Post, The Graphic Canon vol. 3, and Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream. She received the Xeric grant in 2003 for her comics collection Angel. Her graphic novel Apsara Engine (Feminist Press) is the winner of a 2021 L.A. Times Book Prize for Best Graphic Novel and a 2021 Lambda Literary Award winner for Best LGBTQ Comics. Her graphic memoir Spellbound (Street Noise Books) was also a 2021 Lambda Literary Award finalist.

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Reviews for Spellbound

[msf59 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this “almost” graphic memoir, the transgender author, uses an alter-ego, Anjali, to tell her story of growing up in Ethiopia, India, and New York City. It looks at her relationship with her traditional parents and how she finally discovered her creative dream, drawing comics. It wasn’t a perfect read but I liked it enough to recommend it.

[villemezbrown · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

In an intellectually interesting exercise, a transgender woman makes a roman à clef graphic diary wherein she portrays herself as a cis-gender woman. Unfortunately, she then spends most of the book writing about a time when she isolated herself to work on her first graphic novel and way, way, way too many panels are spent describing what she food she is eating for lunch and which wine she is drinking with it. And then joking about how much wine she is drinking, and then drinking more wine, and more wine, and more wine. So, I'm worried about her unresolved drinking problem, but found myself too bored to care about much else.It didn't help that the lettering is atrociously stylized and rather than being able to read sentences, I found myself reading each individual word, pausing frequently to second-guess my first interpretation. Tedious.