"Brown Morning"

Author: Franck Pavloff
Illustrator: Ah To
Publisher: CUP Publishing

Brown Morning is a political allegory novel written by French author Franck Pavloff. The original French version was published in December 1998, while the Chinese translation was released in 2015, featuring illustrations by Hong Kong illustrator Ah To. Ah To and Ah Po created a spin-off story as a small continuation of the original novel.

After its initial publication in 1998, Brown Morning gained widespread recognition in 2002. This was due to the success of far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen in advancing to the second round of the French presidential election. The novel was seen as having accurately foreseen the political landscape of France at the time, leading to significant public attention and selling over a million copies.

The central theme of Brown Morning is opposition to a monolithic national ideology, as well as a critique of what Pavloff refers to as "small concessions." The book became widely popular across France, in part because its content is not tied to a specific historical period, making it a frequently discussed topic in schools and workplaces.

The Chinese edition, illustrated by Ah To, was published in Hong Kong after the 2014 Umbrella Movement. The novel resonated with the post-movement atmosphere, reflecting the sense of helplessness in Hong Kong’s civil society as it faced political repression following the failure of the pro-democracy protests. Additionally,