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Summary
Summary
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Set in the aftermath of Iran's fraudulent elections of 2009, Zahra's Paradise is the fictional graphic novel of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has vanished into an extrajudicial twilight zone. What's keeping his memory from being obliterated is not the law. It is the grit and guts of his mother, who refuses to surrender her son to fate, and the tenacity of his brother, a blogger, who fuses tradition and technology to explore and explode the void in which Mehdi has vanished.
Zahra's Paradise weaves together fiction and real people and events. As the world witnessed the aftermath of Iran's fraudulent elections, through YouTube videos, on Twitter, and in blogs, this story came into being. The global response to this gripping tale has been passionate--an echo of the global outcry during the political upheaval of the summer of 2009.
Zahra's Paradise is a first on the internet, a first for graphic novels, and a first in the history of political dissidence. Zahra's Paradise is being serialized online.
Zahra's Paradise is a Publishers Weekly Best Comics title for 2011.
Author Notes
Amir is an Iranian-American human rights activist, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He has lived and worked in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Afghanistan. His essays and articles have appeared far and wide in the press. Khalil 's work as a fine artist has been much praised. He has been cartooning since he was very young. Zahra's Paradise is his first graphic novel. Both Amir and Khalil have chosen to remain anonymous for political reasons.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This collected web comic resembles Persepolis in its loathing for the current Iranian regime, but these creators (anonymous for political reasons) focus their story via an urgent crisis within one family, as young Mehdi's mother and brother search for him after he vanishes during the government's crackdown on protests against fraudulent national elections in 2009. Now no one in authority will admit knowing what happened to him. From the testimony of the angry but fearful people Medhi's friends encounter, from cab drivers to former aristocrats, it's clear that Mehdi is just one of a disaffected majority whose existence the people in power must deny, since they can maintain the official version of righteousness only by rape, torture, and murder. The authors successfully generalize from one case to the dreadful condition of all Iranians. Medhi's mother is named Zahra, and "Zahra's Paradise" is also a huge cemetery near Tehran; the woman's graveside rant condemns everyone who won't stand up for justice. Khalil's art is a mix of confident caricature, clean cartoony panels, and montage that's remarkably adept at capturing all kinds of action and emotion. The end effect is a powerful look at a people's struggle that goes beyond politicized tropes. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In 2009, the world watched as Iran erupted in revolt over the disputed presidential election. And yet, for all the attention paid to the major political players and masses of protesters, it's easy to miss the crucial reality that the ensuing crackdowns happened to individual people, with families, friends, and lives on the line. While this story about a young man and his mother searching in vain for his missing teenage brother arrested during a protest and swallowed up into the void of the Islamic Republic's sham of a judiciary system is fictionalized, it still carries with it the weight of documentary, putting a face on the wide-angle CNN panoramas and YouTube videos that captured the world's attention. As Hassan and his mother bounce in vain from hospital to courtroom to prison to cemetery (Zahra's Paradise is the name of a huge graveyard outside of Tehran), they are confronted by doublespeak worthy of Orwell and confounded by a labyrinthine bureaucratic nightmare worthy of Kafka. Khalil's pure, black-and-white cartooning is understated when it needs to be and attention-commanding when it wants to be. Both artistically and thematically, this work is rooted in the finest examples of graphic nonfiction, including Maus (1986), Joe Sacco's comics journalism, and, especially, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (2003). An afterword is careful to note that the creators haven't attempted to provide a neutral, even-handed look at Iran's Islamic Republic, but there is no doubting the truth in a mother's tragic words: It doesn't take much, to lose a child in this country. --Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
The photographs and video that streamed out of Iran after the disputed 2009 presidential election depicted a long-abused country driven to the edge. As intimate and distressing as these digital images were - who can forget Neda Agha-Soltan's horrifying death? - they were just fragments. This graphic work offers a wider and steadier window onto Iran's recent anguish. The authors, Amir (an Iranian exile) and Khalil, who remain anonymous for political reasons, draw on scores of real-life stories to create the composite tale of the Alavi family, whose 19-year-old son, a soccer fanatic named Mehdi, disappears in the thick of the protests. If there's one constant to the anguished search that follows, it is the inhumanity with which people are treated by the regime. A copy-shop owner who prints fliers of Mehdi is brutally beaten; a clerk at the court of revolutionary justice angrily spits out: "Listen, woman: You're not the only mother in Iran. . . . What makes your son so special?" And then, of course, there's Mehdi's fate. For all its origins in truth, "Zahra's Paradise" - the title is taken from the name of a cemetery on the outskirts of Tehran - makes the distinction between good and evil too stark: Mehdi comes off as an angel, not a teenager. But Khalil's brilliant and nuanced illustrations go a long way to correct this heavy-handedness; he manages to convey a range of emotions in a feature as simple as Mrs. Alavi's eyebrows.
Library Journal Review
As in Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, here the personal Iran reveals the political. We meet Zahra and Hassan, mother and son, as they search for younger son Mehdi, who has gone missing. All fear his capture by the Secret Police in the aftermath of the disputed 2009 presidential election. In the end, Mehdi is found, but not happily, in this parable out of Kafka. Yet the warmth and passion of the Persian soul shine through-eros also. It should be noted that Zahra is not just the titular mother: Zahra's Paradise is a real, million-grave cemetery in Tehran, and Zahra Kazemi was an actual Canadian-Iranian journalist who was beaten to death in an Iranian prison. Khalil's excellent art has been compared with Satrapi's, but it more resembles Craig Thompson's with a hefty dose of M.C. Escher. Both creators of this "collage," fictionalized from true stories, are expat Iranians working anonymously. Originally a multi-language webcomic, the book will be published in numerous countries. VERDICT Alternately horrible, lovely, and charming, Zahra's sad quest evokes the spirit of people seeking justice. Some violence and sex-related content may limit the age appropriateness. Highly recommended for older teens and up seeking insights into the Middle East.-M.C. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
