TOXIC TROPICS

A graphic exploration of how Guadeloupe and Martinique became among the most polluted places on Earth.

In 2018, Oublié moved to her mother’s island home of Guadeloupe with one goal: to start a life away from the dangers and unrest of her native Paris. However, as soon as she arrived, it became clear she had stumbled into the midst of an ecological crisis caused by chlordecone, a pesticide the island’s banana farmers had used for decades. Oublié immediately sent an email to Luc Multigner, a professor of epidemiology she saw on a TV talk show. Her meeting with him became the first step in an unexpected two-year research journey that would take her to Martinique, Europe, and the U.S. and lead to 136 interviews with scientists, farmers, historians, and documentary filmmakers. Oublié and Gobbi use colorful, comic book–style drawings interspersed with photographs, showing how chlordecone, a pesticide developed in the U.S., came to the islands. When a weevil infestation threatened the banana crops that were the islands' main export, the French government allowed the use of chlordecone in 1973. After tests found that the pesticide was a long-lived carcinogenic, France banned it in 1990. By then, however, the damage was done: The land, water, and surrounding ocean would continue to be contaminated for hundreds of years. Probing more deeply, Oublié discovered a shocking complacency among ordinary French West Indians, and she hints that the French government and white-owned banana plantations had been complicit in the use of chlordecone despite its dangers. By turns thoughtful and devastating, this book reveals how a little-discussed pesticide problem points to a brand of colonialism that continues to cause suffering to people and the environment in the name of profit: “What aspects of our health are we willing to sacrifice at the altar of a production-driven economy?”

Unnervingly illuminating.