1980s Syria - the backdrop for cartoonist Riad Sattouf's new memoir
Railing against parents, shifting identity, struggling in a new home - all hallmarks of coming-of-age stories. Graphic memoirist Riad Sattouf's latest memoir also explores these familiar tropes, except his is set it in 1980s dictator-led Syria.
At six years-old, Sattouf's Syrian Muslim father uprooted his family from the French countryside to settle back down in his small hometown village, Homs. Many years later, Sattouf is telling stories of his atypical childhood in his graphic novel cum memoir series, The Arab of the Future - an experience he describes as re-entering a painful parallel world in his mind.
However, for Sattouf, trying to tell his sometimes tragic story any way but hilariously is impossible.
"I think sadness and sad stories are much more powerful when they are told with humour," he says of striking the right tonal balance.
The Arab of the Future 2, the second installment of the popular, critically-loved and million-copy selling series, finds the blond, curly-haired Sattouf (courtesy of his French Catholic mother), sticking out like a sore thumb as he adjusts to his family's big move. His father, for example, changed a great deal. The move back to his hometown ignited a political passion that the young Sattouf didn't always agree with.
"I think it's quite universal, this fight between tradition and aspiration to modernity and it's the job of everyone to make all those things mix together," he says to guest host Candy Palmater.
WEB EXTRA | Below are the first five pages from Sattouf's latest, The Arab of the Future 2, out now in most major bookstores.
