Born in England to Punjabi parents, graphic novelist Aminder Dhaliwal spent her teens in Canada, then moved to Los Angeles to work in animation. She grew up in largely brown neighbourhoods, but the constant moving still left her feeling a little out of place, she says. She draws on that feeling for her second graphic novel, Cyclopedia Exotica. It captures the experiences and interior lives of a fictional Cyclops community, a largely immigrant population displaying physical differences from the majority, in that they have just one eye. They face micro-aggressions and overt xenophobia every day. Through their lived experience, Dhaliwal, 31, weaves an evocative, surprisingly and often-humorous narrative on race, otherness, beauty and belonging.
