A couple in crisis sets off on a journey to North Macedonia after receiving news of the protagonist’s mother falling ill. Along the way, they confront tensions and memories, interspersed with flashbacks from his family’s past: from his father’s escape during the war in Yugoslavia to the childhood years spent with his mother and brother. Blending irony and drama, Once Upon a Time in the East explores the strength of family bonds and the confrontation with loss, moving back and forth in a bittersweet rhythm between past and present.
Boban Pesov was born in North Macedonia in 1988 and moved to Italy in 1996. Raised in Italy, he graduated from the Piero Gallizio Art High School in Alba and later earned a degree in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Turin.
He first gained public attention through his creative content on YouTube, later expanding his presence on other platforms such as Instagram thanks to his comic strips. He has collaborated with several publishing houses, illustrating various comic projects, including FRANK, written by science communicator Barbascura X. In May 2025, he published his first graphic novel with Tunué, Once Upon a Time in the East, a semi-autobiographical story centered on a family that immigrates to Italy from North Macedonia.The author engages in conversation with the rapper Doppelgänger, and it will be an opportunity to reflect on their shared experience, shaped by the diaspora following the Balkan wars of the 1990s, as well as on rap and the graphic novel.
