”Alpha’ counters the dehumanising discourse around refugees that shows no signs of letting up,’ says Barrington Stoke MD Mairi Kidd. Alpha shows the human condition at a time of extreme stress and Amnesty International UK is proud to partner on it.’ He, like so many, is willing to face a journey full of dangers rather than stay in a place without a future. Alpha is emblematic of the refugee crisis today – he is one of millions on the move, some fleeing war and others in desperate hope of a better life for their families. Nicky Parker, Publisher of Amnesty International UK says, ‘It’s with huge sensitivity that Barroux shows the horrors of life as a refugee, his drawings providing a moving insight into this kind of journey. We know there are other clues in the diary such as his locations and his descriptions of events.Barrington Stoke will partner with Amnesty International UK on ‘Alpha’ and an associated education programme. We know he narrowly escaped death on 28th August, 1914. We do know that our soldier was an infantryman. The soldier's name has long faded from the cover of the diary and there is no name inside the diary. The diary was discovered with a medal and the song lyrics at the back of the diary continue until 1917. We don't know what happened to our solder. The diary begins in August 1914 with the outbreak of WWI and the last entry is 13th September, 1914.

In the words of Michael Morpurgo, who has written a special introduction to the book, this is ‘a witness statement, the untrammelled, unedited voice of someone who was there.’ This is living history in the form of one man's story silhouetted against the historical events of 1914 that formed and transformed the world we live in today. In this striking graphic novel adaptation of a 100-year-old diary, the events of the first two months of WWI are told through the eyes of the unknown soldier. We just have his words and in his own words and Barroux's extraordinary pictures, this is his story.

We have no idea who the soldier is or what became of him. One winter's morning, Barroux was walking down a street in Paris when he made an incredible discovery: the diary of a soldier in the First World War.īarroux rescued the diary from a rubbish heap and illustrated the soldier’s words.

Line of Fire by Barroux