Author Description

This book reproduces and analyzes a collection of crucial primary documents from the early Twentieth-Century. These simple yet rich visual sources provide us with a clever insight into the nature of the colonial order of things. Joyeux was a French artist who served in the colonial service as an art teacher and school administrator. Living primarily in and around Saigon, he captured many aspects of daily life in the French colony in a series of humorous, critical, and, at times, somber cartoons. Taking on individuals such as corrupt civil servants, decadent plantation owners, and scheming Vietnamese housekeepers, his pen and ink drawings spared few. Despite this, he never lost his humanity and empathy. As a member of the community he studied, Joyeux offers the reader an informed analysis of French colonial society from the inside. In addition to translating the cartoon captions, Vann and Montague provide an introductory essay and explications of each image.