To mark the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth, award-winning political cartoonist Martin Rowson (The Coalition Book, Tristam Shandy) employs his trademark draughtsmanship and wit to this adaptation of The Communist Manifesto.
Written by Marx and Engels in 1848, at a time of political upheaval in Europe, it was originally titled Manifesto for the Communist Party and offered a powerful critique of capitalism. Even in the 21st century, the concerns of Marx and Engels’ revolutionary pamphlet remain at the heart of political debate. It is the second-best selling book of all time, surpassed only by The Bible.
Martin Rowson offers a deft interpretation filled with satirical precision and razor-sharp detail, drawing parallels with our current social and political climate. This witty and incisive adaptation offers an accessible, engaging introduction to Marx’s thinking, adding context to this year’s bicentennial celebrations.
About Martin Rowson
Martin Rowson is a multi-award-winning cartoonist, illustrator and writer whose work over the past three decades has appeared regularly in the Guardian, the Daily Mirror, The Times, the Spectator, the Morning Star and almost every other publication you can think of apart from The Sun, but only because they never asked him. His books include comic book adaptations of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, as well as Stuff, a memoir about clearing out his late parents’ house, which was long-listed for the 2006 Samuel Johnson Prize. Rowson is chair of the British Cartoonists’™ Association and is currently serving his third term as a vice-president of the Zoological Society of London. In 2017, one of his Guardian cartoons provoked a full-page editorial in the Daily Mail, which described him and his work as “disgusting… deranged… sick and offensive”.
Martin Rowson lives in South London with his wife. Their son and daughter drop by now and then.
