BookDragon Blog

More than 65 million people, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, have been forced to leave their homes. Whether they are made refugees in another country or displaced internally, 2017 UN data shows that “nearly 20 people are forcibly displaced every minute as a result of conflict or persecution.”

Numerous studies emphasize how books encourage and improve empathic understanding; libraries can be vital enablers by providing remarkable graphic titles such as the baker’s dozen here, as well as two additional titles reviewed in this issue, Illegal​, by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, illustrated by Giovanni Rigano; and The Dead Eye and the Deep Blue Sea​, by Vannak Anan Prum, as told to Ben and Jocelyn Pederick.

 

Algeria Is Beautiful like America. By Olivia Burton. Illus. by Mahi Grand. Tr. by Edward Gauvin. 2018. Lion Forge, $24.99 (9781941302569).

Despite a decade of family objections, a Frenchwoman finally journeys to Algeria in search of her maternal grandparents’ homes, a half-decade after the family fled the collapse of the French colonial empire following the Algerian War of Independence. Guided by her late grandmother’s stories, letters, postcards – plus the unexpected kindness of local strangers – her pilgrimage challenges her family’s past and inspires her own future.

 

Beirut Won’t Cry: Lebanon’s July War; A Visual Diary. By Mazen Kerbaj. Illus. by the author. 2017. Fantagraphics, $30 (9781683960362).

As Israeli bombs fell on Beirut during the summer of 2006, Lebanese cartoonist-musician Kerbaj kept a diary of drawings and words – uploaded to a blog whenever technically possible – bearing witness to the assault, uncertainty, and frustration of navigating daily life made preposterous by impossible conditions.

 

The Best We Could Do. By Thi Bui. Illus. by the author. 2017. Abrams, $26.99 (9781419718779).

Although the refugee narrative might feel familiar – parents and young children escape war to start a new life on the other side of the world – Bui’s version, presented in panels of black, white, and shades of reddish-brown (as if she’s melded her very bones and blood onto the page), proves astonishingly original.

 

A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories. By Will Eisner. Illus. by the author. 1978. Norton, $25.95 (9780393609189).

Eisner’s title is considered by many to be the first graphic novel, and a restored edition was published in 2017, in celebration of the centennial of his birth. Set in the 1930s immigrant Jewish community of New York’s Bronx, Eisner’s Dropsie Avenue tenement stories open with the eponymous “Contract,” in which Frimme Hersch’s utter transformation in reaction to his beloved daughter’s death has devastating consequences. The stories that follow feature the trials and tribulations of other Dropsie residents and relatives.

 

Cuba: My Revolution. By Inverna Lockpez. Illustrated by Dean Haspiel. 2010. Vertigo, $24.99 (9781401222178).

In 1959, 17-year-old Sonya remains hopeful despite the violent chaos that threatens her home city of Havana. She commits to the coming revolution by postponing her artistic dreams to become a doctor. Over the next seven years, as Castro seizes power, she survives a tortuous journey – physical, intellectual, emotional – from dedication to disillusionment. Based on her own memories, Lockpez’s book mourns lives lost, society betrayed, history erased, but celebrates Cuban resistance and resilience.

 

Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda. By Jean-Philippe Stassen. Illus. by the author. Tr. by Alexis Siegel. 2006. First Second, $19.99 (9781596431034).

Deo gratias is Latin for “thanks be to God,” but gratitude and God vanish in Belgian graphic-novelist Stassen’s arresting title (a new edition will be available November 2018). Trapped in a neverending nightmare of brutal violence, the titular Deogratias transforms from teenager to madman over a mere few months. Stassen’s stark panels re-create the Rwandan genocide, which began in 1994, as translator Siegel bluntly reminds how “the world stood by and essentially did nothing.”

 

Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story. By Hamid Sulaiman. Illus. by the author. Tr. by Francesca Barrie. 2017. Interlink, $20 (9781623719951).

Winner of an English PEN Translates Award, Freedom Hospital might be fictional, but the history is real. Paris-based Syrian refugee Sulaiman draws on his own terrifying experiences of losing family and friends to the Assad regime. Set in 2012, a year after the Arab Spring, the book depicts a Syria devolved into murderous chaos in which political and personal alliances prove unreliable. Freedom Hospital’s founder and funder, Yasmin, her staff, and their patients all have stories that, puzzled together, provide a chilling overview of a country at war.

 

An Iranian Metamorphosis. By Mana Neyestani. Illus. by the author. Tr. by Ghazal Mosadeq. 2014. Uncivilized, $19.99 (9780988901445).

One unintentionally wrong word in a children’s cartoon lost Neyestani his job, his freedom, and nearly his life. Granted a temporary release from infamous Evin Prison, Neyestani and his wife choose to run. Their uncertain odyssey takes them as far as China; meanwhile, they can never be sure of friends, promises, or even tomorrow. Like its namesake – Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” – this Metamorphosis captures the perilous incomprehensibility of the absurd.

 

Kobane Calling: Greetings from Northern Syria. By Zerocalcare. Illus. by the author. Tr. by Jamie Richards. 2017. Lion Forge, $19.99 (9781941302491).

“Man, how the fuck did I wind up here?” Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare alarmingly asks while learning to distinguish among incoming explosions from Daesh (ISIS), Kurdish militias, Americans, or Turks in northern Syria’s Kobane. Despite the peril, when given the opportunity, Zerocalcare travels not once but twice through Turkey, Iraq, and Syria to document the savagery – with poignancy, even absurdity – of a region in devastating crisis.

 

Poppies of Iraq. By Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim. Illus. by Lewis Trondheim. Tr. by Helge Dascher. 2017. Drawn & Quarterly, $21.95 (9781770462939).

The daughter of an Orthodox Christian Iraqi father and a Catholic French mother, Findakly explores her Iraqi childhood, made graphically intimate by her artist husband, Trondheim. Being Christian in a dominant Muslim society and coming-of-age during tumultuous times – defined by oppression, war, changing regimes, and, ultimately, French exile – present unnerving difficulties, but Findakly succeeds in capturing the smallest joys of family, friendship, and the best of the “good memories.”

 

Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. By Sarah Glidden. Illus. by the author. 2016. Drawn & Quarterly, $24.95 (9781770462557).

For two months in 2010, Glidden accompanied two journalist friends and a former U.S. Marine through refugee-heavy international hot spots. While the two friends multitasked to create articles and documentaries for their Globalist site and other news outlets, Glidden graphically documented their interactions with each other, their guides, and their subjects, creating an intriguing exploration of storytelling in journalism – which stories matter, who tells the story and how – and the responsibilities of U.S. journalists, especially in some of the least-American-friendly corners of the world.

 

Threads: From the Refugee Crisis. By Kate Evans. Illus. by the author. 2017. Verso, $24.95 (9781786631732).

Artist-activist Evans immediately announces, “Everything you are about to read really happened.” Calais, France, is the site of “the Jungle,” where thousands of international refugees comprise a “microcosmic Disunited Nations.” During Evans’ 2015–16 volunteer trips, she recorded the increasingly dangerous conditions, the paralyzing waiting, and the disappearing resources; beyond the Jungle, she exposed the rising European hostility toward refugees. Evans’ visual layout is especially affecting, as she edges and divides pages with the local lace for which Calais is famous, juxtaposing its beauty against real-life Jungle horrors.

 

Yellow Negroes and Other Imaginary Creatures. By Yvan Alagbé. Illus. by the author. Tr. by Donald Nicholson-Smith. 2018. New York Review, $22.95 (9781681371764).

Cult-comic icon Alagbé’s seven stories examine French colonial history through the racially charged plight of contemporary refugees. The titular “Yellow Negroes” features undocumented Beninese workers whose lives are disrupted by a lonely French Algerian policeman. “Dyaa” captures relationships torn apart by immigration – and desperation. The remaining, shorter pieces range from surreal to mystical, presented in raw, immediate black-and-white art.

Review: “Core Collection: Refugee Stories,” “Graphic Novels,” Booklist, July 1, 2018

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2017-2018