Guy Delisle is a Canadian-born animator living in France and working mostly in Europe, increasingly in comics. Shenzhen is his travelogue in graphic novel form of a stint working in an animation studio in Southern China (near Canton and Hong Kong). This is its first publication in English.

Guy Delisle's work for a French animation studio requires him to oversee production at various Asian studios on the grim frontiers of free trade. His employer puts him up for months at a time in 'cold and soulless' hotel rooms where he suffers the usual deprivations of a man very far from home. After Pyongyang, his book about the strange society that is North Korea, Delisle turned his attention to Shenzhen, the cold, urban city in Southern China that is sealed off with electric fences and armed guards from the rest of the country. The result is another brilliant graphic novel - funny, scary, utterly original and illuminating.