The Comedians

The Comedians

Soldiers search bus passengers along the Northern Highway, El Salvador 1980

Magnum

Susan Meiselas' 1980 photograph of bus passengers being detained and searched by soldiers in El Salvador is used for the cover of this edition of Graham Greene's novel The Comedians, first published in 1966, which takes place in Haiti during the rule of François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. While there is a 15 to 20 year difference between the subject matter of the novel and that of the photograph - not to mention two different countries - a dictatorial regime is a dictatorial regime, no matter where or when, and Meiselas' image suggests the terrors of totalitarianism while maintaining a sufficient degree of abstraction to serve as a convincing visual metaphor in either case.