Yvan Alagbé was born in Paris and spent three years of his youth in West Africa. He returned to study mathematics and physics at the Université de Paris-Sud, where he met Olivier Marboeuf. Alagbé and Marboeuf founded a contemporary visual arts review called L’oeil carnivore and the magazine Le Chéval sans tête (“The Headless Horse”), which gained a cult following for its publication of innovative graphic art and comics. Labeling these artistic collaborations as “Dissidence Art Work,” Alagbé and Marboeuf soon founded their own publishing house, Amok, drawing from the material serialized in Le Chéval, including the first version of Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures. In 2001, Amok partnered with the publishing group Fréon to establish the Franco-Belgian collaboration Frémok, now a major European graphic novels publisher. Alagbé lives in Paris.
Donald Nicholson-Smith is an award-winning translator of French literature. He has translated Jean-Patrick Manchette’s Fatale and The Mad and the Bad, Jean-Paul Clébert’s Paris Vagabond (all NYRB Classics), and the forthcoming NYR Comics title The Green Hand and Other Stories by Nicole Claveloux. He lives in New York City.