Irmina

Inspired by a true story, this evocative chronicle of a young German woman’s experiences in London as WWII looms reads like an aged relative’s intimate scrapbook. Young Irmina toils in her training as a transcriptionist while experiencing alienation as a foreigner, an experience she shares with Howard, one of the first black students at Oxford. The pair bond over their shared outsider status, and affection blossoms—but the romance dies as circumstances force Irmina to return to Germany. Once Hitler’s war machine kicks into high gear, she faces the reality of life under the Nazis: food and fuel shortages, restrictions on career opportunities for women, and the rising tide of anti-Semitism. German cartoonist Yelin, making her English-language debut, blends sketchy pencil lines and moody watercolor tones, creating an engrossing, candid reminiscence of an individual’s promise crushed by the bleak times she had the misfortune of being born into. (Apr.)