Hugo Pratt in Africa

Hugo Pratt’s companion, Jean Claude Guilbert, uncovers a secret love story which began in 1936 when Pratt arrived in Ethiopia with his family. At ten years of age he found himself thrown from a normal Venetian childhood into a wretched Fascist adventure in Italian East Africa. The six years he spent there marked his life and his work forever.
Enrolled against his will, Pratt became Mussolini’s youngest soldier and, confronted with the cruelties and ambiguities of war, he developed the moral standards that will give birth to his unforgettable characters, from Lieutenant Koinsky to the famous Corto Maltese.