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Cargando... The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir (edición 2015)por Riad Sattouf (Autor)
Información de la obraEl árabe del futuro por Riad Sattouf (Author)
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. Liked it a lot, both the art and the (translated) text. Funny, sad, strange, but familiar too. Very short read, but I feel like I got a lot out of it. I don't usually read graphic fiction or in this case memoirs, but I enjoy it when I do. ( ) I loved this book. Sattouf has an uncanny ability to evoke the way a child sees the world - through sound, smell, texture - small, vivid memories. It would have been easy to write this story with a sense of self-consciousness - to make the whole thing a commentary about the Arab world vs. the Western world for example, or to play up the similarities and differences between them in a deliberate way. But that's not the feeling I got from this story. The young Riad just observes the two worlds he lives in - what he likes about them, what he doesn't like - with the microscopic focus of a child, not the value judgments of an adult. Like any child, Riad just accepts the rather bizarre details of his cross-cultural life as normal - it's all he's known. The family drama is the real heart of the story. Because we see everything through the child Riad's eyes, we don't get much of a sense of the relationship between his parents, but we get a strong sense of how they each impact the child. His mother seems kindly but rather blank, sometimes mildly rebellious but generally making a point of remaining in the background, while his father dominates every scene he is in. Despite his many flaws - his boorishness, prejudice and backwardness - he is still rather likable and sympathetic. His unstoppable enthusiasm is infectious, even when it is dramatically misguided, and it's easy to see why the young Riad thinks of him as a superhero. His story - the only member of a peasant family to learn to read, let alone go to college - is astounding, and it's hardly surprising that the cognitive dissonance between his old and new lives (brought into sharp relief when he moves the family to live in his childhood village in Syria) causes him to behave erratically sometimes. He is sincere in his belief in Arab nationalism and the need to modernise, but emotionally he cannot let go of the religiosity, superstition and supremacist assumptions of his upbringing. In a way, the figure of Abdel-Razek Sattouf is a tragic hero, brought down by his own hamartia. Sattouf is continuing the story in follow-up volumes - I believe there will be 3 in total. The second edition has been published but has not yet been translated into English. I look forward to seeing how the story develops, and especially to getting a fuller picture of his mother Clementine's personality. Some may not like the very simple cartoon style of the art, but I think it's very appropriate to the story. Highly recommended to any reader - those with an interest in the Middle East will be drawn to it, but that background is not necessary to enjoy 'The Arab of the Future'. I'm left a little perplexed by this, but I wonder whether that was kind of the point. Even though this is all from Riad's POV, I kept being confounded by the father, who I thought was supposed to be progressive by reading the synopsis. I suppose he was by traditional Arab standards, but boy howdy. I kept waiting for the mother to leave, but I guess she was cool with it? The "Arab of the Future" concept for the Sattouf family isn't mentioned or made evident until the very end, so I just kind of had the feeling of being adrift during the read.
The Arab of the Future is an authentic, emotionally honest memoir, and much more useful background reading for present events than a romanticised account of cosmopolitan, bourgeois Damascus would be. Pertenece a las seriesContenido enPremiosDistinciones
"In striking, virtuoso graphic style that captures both the immediacy of childhood and the fervor of political idealism, Riad Sattouf recounts his nomadic childhood growing up in rural France, Gaddafi's Libya, and Assad's Syria--but always under the roof of his father, a Syrian Pan-Arabist who drags his family along in his pursuit of grandiose dreams for the Arab nation. Riad, delicate and wide-eyed, follows in the trail of his mismatched parents; his mother, a bookish French student, is as modest as his father is flamboyant. Venturing first to the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab State and then joining the family tribe in Homs, Syria, they hold fast to the vision of the paradise that always lies just around the corner. And hold they do, though food is scarce, children kill dogs for sport, and with locks banned, the Sattoufs come home one day to discover another family occupying their apartment. The ultimate outsider, Riad, with his flowing blond hair, is called the ultimate insult... Jewish. And in no time at all, his father has come up with yet another grand plan, moving from building a new people to building his own great palace. Brimming with life and dark humor, The Arab of the Future reveals the truth and texture of one eccentric family in an absurd Middle East, and also introduces a master cartoonist in a work destined to stand alongside Maus and Persepolis"-- No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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