An intimate, poignant portrait of an uncompromising revolutionary and feminist.

Once known as “the world’s most dangerous woman,” and one of America’s greatest orators, Emma Goldman is now largely forgotten to history, but this graphic biography passionately reveals her dramatic life and ideals.

The year is 1939 and on the cusp of world war, Emma is living in Toronto. She leads a small group of left-wing radicals fighting the rise of fascist activities in Canada as waves of tyranny engulf Spain, Italy and Germany. In her final months she struggles to maintain her stamina as they work to save a fellow anti-fascist from deportation and death.

About to turn 70, Emma struggles with melancholy as her ideals are pushed aside as the world lurches towards authoritarianism. She recalls the personal toll of her activism: harassment, arrests, trials, imprisonments, deportations and exile. Her battle against fascism and war, and her push for worker’s rights, women’s reproductive health and feminism remain remarkably relevant for contemporary readers.

The primary source material for At The End came from Candace Falk’s heroic archive, The Emma Goldman Papers in Berkeley, California. These documents were in the form of microfilm. Also David Lester visited archives in Victoria, New York, and Amsterdam. In Ottawa, the National Archives contained all the “TOP SECRET” RCMP surveillance files on Emma Goldman. In Toronto, he explored the private home on Vaughan Road where Emma Goldman lived and died that last year of her life.

David Lester’s glorious black and white watercolour drawings evocatively depict the passionate life of a radical maverick ahead of her time. At The End is a story of courage and conviction in a world of moral and political corruption. The life of Emma Goldman offers hope and inspiration for those of us today, unwaveringly speaking truth to power.