Published in 1970, Evita: The Life and Work of Eva Peron was daringly intended to be the follow-up to the artists'' successful and controversial 1969 graphic biography Life of Che. Hector German Oesterheld plotted the book and the father and son team of Alberto and Enrique Breccia drew the comic - but the text was ''sanitised'' before its publication. In 2001, a restored version of Evita featuring Oesterheld''s original, uncensored script was finally published in Spanish; it is translated in English here for the first time. In just 72 boldly penned chiaroscuro pages, this graphic biography paints a complex portrait of a pivotal Argentine figure who was at once beloved and reviled by her people. Born in rural Argentina to extreme poverty, she moved to Buenos Aires where she met and married Colonel Peron, who would become president of Argentina. As First Lady, affectionately nicknamed Evita, she devoted herself to social welfare and worker''s rights, campaigned for women''s suffrage, and became known as ''The Spiritual Leader of the Nation.'' While she has been viewed as an international icon, inspiring celebratory works such as Andrew Lloyd Webber''s 1976 Broadway show Evita, this biography by her countrymen takes a far more searing and critical approach, chronicling the noble causes she fought for as well as the militarism and oppression of the Peronist regime.
