false
Self Made Hero logo

Chico and Rita

Words by Fernando Trueba

Art by Javier Mariscal

Translated by Howard Curtis

Hardback, 208 pp, £15.99

Cuba, 1948.

Chico is a young piano player with big dreams. Rita is a beautiful singer with an extraordinary voice.

Music and romantic desire unite them, but their journey - in the tradition of the Latin ballad, the bolero - brings heartache and torment. From Havana to New York, Paris, Hollywood and Las Vegas, two passionate individuals battle impossible odds to unite in music and love.

Adapted from the animated feature film by multi-award-winning Javier Mariscal and Fernando Trueba.


Fernando Trueba


Fernando Trueba is a multi-award-winning writer, director and producer, with a career spanning more than three decades in film, television, documentaries, theatre and music. Belle Epoque, starring Penelope Cruz, won both the Oscar and BAFTA for Foreign Language Film. Trueba's Latin jazz documentary Calle 54 saw the birth of his collaboration and friendship with Javier Mariscal. In the concert film Blanco Y Negro, he brought together Cuban-born musician Bebo Valdes and Spanish flamenco star Diego 'El Cigala', winning the Latin Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video. His documentary filmed in Brazil, El Milagro De Candeal, won two Goya awards. El Ano de Las Luces also won a Goya, as well as the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Trueba's published works include a dictionary of cinema. He began his career as the film critic at leading Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Javier Mariscal


Javier Mariscal is an artist and designer who works in multiple fields, including illustration, graphics, comic books, paintings, animation, interiors, product design, furniture and web design. In 1979, he created the Bar Cel Ona (bar, sky, wave) logo for his adoptive city of Barcelona, a powerful and accessible piece of graphic communication that won him instant acclaim. He is the creator of Cobi, the merchandise-friendly mascot of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and Twipsy, a character designed for the Hanover 2000 Expo that later starred in his own animated TV series. The Valencia-born designer opened Estudio Mariscal in Barcelona in 1989, winning multiple commissions across a range of disciplines. Javier Mariscal was the subject of a major retrospective at London's Design Museum in 2009. An exhibition of his work, Mariscal A La Pedrera, opened in September 2010 at the Pedrera, one of Gaudi's most famous buildings, in Barcelona.

Reviews

"A work of art in its own right: exuberant, passionate and melancholy… For all that this book will have you tapping your toes, I defy anyone to reach the end of it without a tear in their eye."
— The Observer
"Javier Mariscal is a multifaceted, uninhibited force of natural creativity. This Spanish phenomenon is somehow able to dance in the high-pressure orbits of graphics, architecture, design, furniture, movies and art without ever losing his playful exuberance."
— Art Review