You are tired of the deprivations of the curfew, how about traveling to Indonesia? Emmanuel Lemaire just opened the door in My East Indonesian Neighbor.
A motionless journey
The cover sets the tone, a bundled up woman passes in front of a sign where she leaves Jakarta and walks towards Charleville Mézières. My neighbor is Indonesian opens with the first meeting of Emmanuel Lemaire with a new neighbor very expansive. She tells him crazy stories about the links between Indonesia, Dieppe and Rimbaud. At first, he does not believe it but after a little surfing the internet, he realizes that everything is plausible. She is proud to say that she did not flee corruption that came out of love for French culture. Translator during the week, Hibou is an adventurer of the SNCF on weekends. She not only discovered France by train but chose cities ignored by international guides: Dijon, Charleville-Mézières and cities frequented by writers (Châteauroux for George Sand, Niort and Houellebecq…). The reader discovers both France and Indonesia. While she discovers the France, the cartoonist discovers the immense Indonesia by this meeting and leaves the commonplaces. In this country, which is the largest archipelago, the population is predominantly Muslim but 25% of the government is female. 
A disturbing neighbour in a threatened France
This meeting causes cultural misunderstandings between Emmanuel and Hibou. A joke of the cartoonist goes wrong while it scares him because of what he finds about his city on the internet. The humor in My neighbor is Indonesian comes from the strangeness of the neighbor who has urticaria treated with a knife that killed someone, but also from the clumsiness of the cartoonist. At first, the neighbor seems strange to Emmanuel Lemaire. Hibou comes from Makassar whose reputation is to be a city of honor criminals. She is afraid of kittens and dances with joy when she sees snow but is not afraid to travel anywhere in France. In fact, this neighbor is looking for freedom. She seems happy to have left a society corseted with fashionable privacy. Before My Neighbor is Indonesian, the author had already published two travel stories such as Rotterdam, a stay on the water's edge, but did the confinement force him to find the stranger on his doorstep? The epidemic arrives halfway through the book like a rumor of an approaching storm but nothing comes before the thunderclap of confinement that closes the book. The designer's contacts with his neighbor are then limited to conversations by sms. 
A drawing that travels
Emmanuel Lemaire's drawing, through these clumsiness, adds the human element to the story. Each page is made with a black and white pen. Its irregular features render the humanity of history. The faces are close to Cabu but with very detailed cityscapes. We feel that at the very least, Emmanuel Lemaire works with photos. Its layout is very fluid and subtle. She can wander and be very fluid when Madame Hibou walks around in France, and very rigid with a very tight waffle iron when confinement arrives. By My neighbor is Indonesian is a new pearl of the Shampoo collection at Delcourt. The reader rediscovers the countryside and small towns of France through foreign eyes. Once the book is closed, the reader feels richer from what he learns and this beautiful human relationship. If you like travel, we recommend our column on Gotham or a strange hotel in the center of the United States.
