Abu Abraham
Born
in Mavelikara, Kerala as the son of A.M. Mathew and Kantamma, Abu
started drawing cartoons at the age of 3. After studying French,
Mathematics, and English at University College, Thiruvananthapuram
(Trivandrum) and being the tennis champion, he graduated in 1945. He
moved to Bombay where he became a journalist in Bombay Chronicle and its
sister paper, The Bombay Sentinel while contributing cartoons to Blitz
and Bharat. In 1951, he was invited by Shankar, one of India's best
known cartoonists at the time, to move to New Delhi to work in the
Shankar's Weekly.
In
1953, he met Fred Joss of the London Star, who encouraged him to move
to London.[2] At 32, Abu arrived in London in the summer of 1953 and
immediately sold cartoons to Punch magazine and the Daily Sketch and
started to contribute material to Everybodys' London Opinion and Eastern
World using the pen name 'Abraham'. In 1956, after two cartoons were
published in Tribune, he was sent a personal letter by David Astor, the
editor of The Observer, the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, offering
him a permanent job as its first ever political cartoonist. Astor asked
Abu to change his pen name as 'Abraham' would imply a false slant on his
cartoons, and so he settled on 'Abu', a schoolboy nickname of his.
Abu
immersed himself in British culture and produced incisive political
cartoons. He was described in The Guardian as "the conscience of the
Left and the pea under the princess's mattress".He also produced
reportage drawings from around the world. In 1962 in Cuba he drew Che
Guevara and spent three hours in a nightclub with Fidel Castro.
In
September 1966, Abu moved to The Guardian and started to contribute a
weekly cartoon to the Tribune. During 1968 he edited Verdicts on
Vietnam, a collection of cartoons about the Vietnam war.
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