Joakim Lindengren’s comic book United States of Banana is based on a dramatic sequence within Giannina Braschi’s eponymous postcolonial novel, which was hailed by cultural theorist Hamid Dabashi as “one of the most brilliant postcolonial works of fiction in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, savagely critical of the predatory capitalism and its ravages in Puerto Rico and around the globe.
Lindengren emerged from Sweden’s alternative-comics scene, where Galago became an important forum for adult-oriented satire and absurdism. He shared its pages with contemporaries including Swedish comic book creators, Joakim Pirinen, Lena Ackebo, Max Andersson, and Ulf Lundkvist—artists whose work helped broaden the possibilities of Swedish comics
The Swedish edition of United States of Banana appeared first, published by Cobolt Förlag in 2017. The English edition followed in 2021 from Mad Creek Books, an imprint of Ohio State University Press. Across both editions, the book brings poetry, political satire, and radical political philosophy, and Lindengren’s drawings into a lively exchange. Readers may encounter it in conversations about graphic literature, but Lindengren regards it more directly as a comic book.
From Cobolt to Ohio State University Press
The Swedish edition was translated by Helena Eriksson, an award-winning Swedish poet and translator, and introduced by art curator and museum director Isabella Nilsson. The English edition includes an introduction by Amy Sheeran and Amanda M. Smith. The Ohio State University Press page includes the book’s publication details and discussion questions for readers and classrooms.
Helena Eriksson’s work as a translator is part of a wide-ranging literary career. The Swedish Academy’s profile lists her translations of Anaïs Nin and Unica Zürn, as well as her co-translation with Hanna Nordenhök of Giannina Braschi’s Drömmarnas imperium. Eriksson received the Swedish Academy’s 2025 Bellman Prize, awarded to an outstanding Swedish poet.
Lindengren’s comic book artwork: homage with a wicked eye
Lindengren layers the pages with visual references to painting, photography, film, illustration, and comics. World Literature Today points to riffs on Picasso, Dalí, Magritte, Escher, Tom of Finland, and Disney cartoonist Al Taliaferro, calling the result “an homage rife with irony.” His drawings honor art history while letting its icons loose in the comic-book crowd.
The characters may be aged in body, but they remain heroic in thought. Lindengren’s drawings give their bodies weight and history while their ideas keep reaching toward freedom. In another pointed visual joke, he depicts the villain Oliver Exterminator as Donald Trump before Trump was elected president of the United States.
Swedish reviewers and booksellers have described Lindengren’s drawing as richly worked and atmospheric, with physical comedy and unexpected visual associations. Serier & Sånt highlights his mixture of realism and fantasy, humor and seriousness; a Swedish review of the book notes the movement from his familiar ink work to more atmospheric pencil drawing..
Scholarly and critical reading of Lindengren’s images
The book has inspired conversation across literary studies, visual culture, and comics scholarship:
- Latinx Comics Studies: Critical and Creative Crossings, edited by Fernanda Díaz-Basteris and Maite Urcaregui and published by Rutgers University Press, includes Frederick Luis Aldama’s chapter “United States of Banana: A Graphic Novel as Decluttering and Decolonizing Doubled Journey of the Self.” Rutgers University Press. www.rutgersuniversitypress.org
- Thomas Rothe, “The Wedding of the Century: Review of ‘United States of Banana’”, published by Intervenxions at NYU’s Latinx Project. Rothe explores the work’s transatlantic connections and how Lindengren’s visual references make arguments of their own. www.latinxproject.nyu.edu
- Rolando Pérez, “Breaking Free from the Dungeon of Liberty”, in Latinx Pop Magazine, considers the book’s political and philosophical play and Lindengren’s art-historical wit. Pérez calls it “a book of words and images, an artefact, an event.” www.latinxpopmag.com
- Nuria Morgado, review in the Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, praises Lindengren’s drawings as “strikingly beautiful and powerful in form and meaning.” ohiostatepress.org
- Poets, Philosophers, Lovers: On the Writings of Giannina Braschi, edited by Frederick Luis Aldama and Tess O’Dwyer, includes essays on art and the commodification of culture, game forms, and intermediality in United States of Banana. University of Pittsburgh Press. www.schweitzer-online.de
- Amy Sheeran and Amanda M. Smith, “A Graphic Revolution: Talking Poetry & Politics with Giannina Braschi”, in Chiricú Journal, and John Riofrio, “Falling for Debt: Giannina Braschi, the Latinx Avant-Garde, and Financial Terrorism in the United States of Banana”, in Latino Studies, offer further scholarly approaches.
- Richard Price and Sally Price called it “the trippiest work on this year’s Bookshelf” in the New West Indian Guide; their review appears in the journal’s 2022 issue.
Lindengren’s comic book panels in Sweden
An exhibition of Lindengren’s comic book panels for United States of Banana was organized by Lars-Ove Östensson, Director of the Passagen Gallery in Linköping, Sweden in 2019.
For Lindengren’s broader career—including Kapten Stofil, Ugly, stop-motion animation, and miniature Gothenburg—read Joakim Lindengren: Swedish Cartoonist, Comic Book Artist, and Miniaturist.