By
THE ATTACK
Written by Loïc Dauvillier
Illustrated by Glen Chapron
Adapted from the novel by Yasmina Kadra
152 pp. Firefly Books. $24.95.
THE ARAB OF THE FUTURE 2
A Graphic Memoir: A Childhood in the Middle East (1984-1985)
By Riad Sattouf
Translated by Sam Taylor
154 pp. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company. Paper, $26.
ROLLING BLACKOUTS
Dispatches From Turkey, Syria, and Iraq
By Sarah Glidden
298 pp. Drawn & Quarterly. $24.95.
“If I locked you up, it was so you could taste hate,” Dr. Amin Jaafari’s captor says in the extraordinary graphic novel version of Yasmina Kadra’s “The Attack.” “Anything can happen if you scratch at someone’s self-esteem. Especially if they are feeling powerless.”
This is not just a simplified explanation of the complex motivations of a suicide bomber. These words, in a sense, exemplify the brutal cycle of the Middle East tragedy: Injustice leads to powerlessness, to frustration to rage, and finally to acts of violence that undercut any attempts at peace or reconciliation.
