26 Oct / Hakim’s Odyssey, Book 1: From Syria to Turkey by Fabien Toulmé, translated by Hannah Chute [in Booklist]
*STARRED REVIEW
French graphic creator Fabien Toulmé transforms “the words that were entrusted“ to him into this stupendous testimony of survival. The first of three volumes (the subsequent two have published in France and are scheduled to be published in the U.S. in 2022) begins with Toulmé’s personal attempt to humanize the horrific immigration statistics, among which “Syrians make up the vast majority of the refugees trying to get to Europe.” A journalist friend led Toulmé to Hakim.
Within the first 10 pages, readers know that Hakim has been living in Aix-en-Provence since 2015, but his labyrinthine path from homeland to safety will reveal years of dangerous, challenging displacements. In Syria, Hakim was a gardener managing his own nursery, successful enough to buy his own apartment. By 2011, war destroyed life as he knew it. As chaos ensued, Hakim was imprisoned and tortured without cause, and his younger brother disappeared. Leaving was his only option, taking him through Lebanon, Jordan, then Turkey – desperately searching for ways to help his family back home.
Toulmé affectingly uses a palette of blues, purples, and reds for his present-day exchanges with Hakim, then renders the past in browns and blues; his art is invitingly sublime throughout. Hannah Chute deftly translates. Volume 1 ends in the midst of another transition, leaving captivated readers only wanting more, more, more.
Review: “Graphic Novels,” Booklist, October 15, 2021
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2018 (France), 2021 (United States)