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30th out of 175 books
—
69 voters
Zahra's Paradise
Set in the aftermath of Iran’s fraudulent elections of 2009, Zahra’s Paradise is the fictional story 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 broth
Hardcover, 272 pages
Published
September 13th 2011
by First Second
(first published January 1st 2011)
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This book brought up so many complex emotions for me...I don't know where to start. It is beautiful and haunting. Like Maus or Palestine, but set in the now. This is happening now.
In 2009 Iranian's took to the streets to protest Ahmadinejad's electoral "victory." I remember images on the news of crowds swathed in green; an upheaval I couldn't fully fathom. The scene quickly changed to sports or the Kardashians or the latest political talking points. No depth. No history. No follow up. Zahra's P...more
In 2009 Iranian's took to the streets to protest Ahmadinejad's electoral "victory." I remember images on the news of crowds swathed in green; an upheaval I couldn't fully fathom. The scene quickly changed to sports or the Kardashians or the latest political talking points. No depth. No history. No follow up. Zahra's P...more
book 135 of 1000
Originally started as a blog, Zahra's Paradise details the aftermath of Iran's elections (fraudulently re-electing Ahmadinejad to leadership). A young Iranian has gone missing in the aftermath of a protest about the election, and his mother and brother (the narrator) search desperately for Mehdi. The narrator details the corruption, greed, and sense of profound dissatisfaction with the ruling powers of Iran. A powerful and shocking look at Iran from the inside.
This is a profoun...more
Originally started as a blog, Zahra's Paradise details the aftermath of Iran's elections (fraudulently re-electing Ahmadinejad to leadership). A young Iranian has gone missing in the aftermath of a protest about the election, and his mother and brother (the narrator) search desperately for Mehdi. The narrator details the corruption, greed, and sense of profound dissatisfaction with the ruling powers of Iran. A powerful and shocking look at Iran from the inside.
This is a profoun...more
Although I don't know a lot about the 2009 riots, I was moved by this graphic novel. Zahra's Paradise is a powerful and personal statement made by its author and artist, who remain anonymous due to fear of reprisals by the government of Iran.
The story takes place in the chaos just after the 2009 riots, but the themes explored are universal. A mother struggles to find out anything about what happened to her son, searching hospitals, morgues, and a prison. Her other son does everything he can to...more
The story takes place in the chaos just after the 2009 riots, but the themes explored are universal. A mother struggles to find out anything about what happened to her son, searching hospitals, morgues, and a prison. Her other son does everything he can to...more
I got some beefs with this book.
First of all -- it felt like Will Eisner + Craig Thompson. Which was nice to look at, definitely, but a little too derivative to really work for me.
Secondly -- it's fiction. It's a fictional story. Without a lot of historical context provided (umm I'm supposed to know the context because I was paying attention to all the Arab Spring news aren't I? Well, I wasn't ok. And neither will people picking this up in 10 years guys), but basically I felt like it didn't comm...more
First of all -- it felt like Will Eisner + Craig Thompson. Which was nice to look at, definitely, but a little too derivative to really work for me.
Secondly -- it's fiction. It's a fictional story. Without a lot of historical context provided (umm I'm supposed to know the context because I was paying attention to all the Arab Spring news aren't I? Well, I wasn't ok. And neither will people picking this up in 10 years guys), but basically I felt like it didn't comm...more
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If you're looking for a book to break your heart, this might be the one. Flashback a few years to the Iranian elections and subsequent protests. A young man, Medhi, has gone missing. His brother, a blogger, and his mother set out to find him. Their journey takes the reader across Tehran and into prisons, morgues and mass graves. It's an unflinching look at the effects of government corruption intertwined with Shari'a law, told with absolute respect for those trapped in the crossfire. It is as mu...more
Salanimien takana pysyttelevän ihmisoikeusaktivisti-bloggari Amirin ja kuvittajana toimineen Khalilin sarjakuva "Zahran paratiisi" (Like, 2011) kertoo Iranin parin vuoden takaisten presidentinvaalien jälkeen syntyneistä levottomuuksista ja niiden jälkeisistä törkeistä ihmisoikeusrikkomuksista, joihin vaalit voittaneen Mahmuid Ahmadinejadin ja islamilaisen tasavallan Korkeimman johtajan Ali Khameinin hallinto syyllistyi.
"Zahran paratiisilla" on kaksoismerkitys; se viittaa niin Teheranin suurimpaa...more
"Zahran paratiisilla" on kaksoismerkitys; se viittaa niin Teheranin suurimpaa...more
Blessed are the truthseekers and truth tellers, especially those who risk not only their own lives and voices, but those of family and friends, in the pursuit of the real story, particularly in the face of vicious, oppressive tyrannies, whether religiously fanatical or simply power hungry. The people of the great country of Iran have suffered enormously under the rule of the mullahs and their basij stormtroopers, and the world was stunned by the execution of Neda on a Tehran street on 20 June 20...more
I must first state that the ONLY reason I did not give this book a fifth star was the artwork, which was just a little too cartoony for my own tastes. This slightly weakened a couple of scenes.
The writing was a tiny bit confusing at the start, but once it started rolling I couldn't put this book down. It puts the fragmented news reports in the media of 2009 in a very different context, as it tells the story of a fictional but very believable story about how events can take over the life of a fam...more
The writing was a tiny bit confusing at the start, but once it started rolling I couldn't put this book down. It puts the fragmented news reports in the media of 2009 in a very different context, as it tells the story of a fictional but very believable story about how events can take over the life of a fam...more
Personally, I don't know much about Iran or its political climate except that it has been and is in the throes of revolution. I know more now. The true value of this book is not that it is an incredibly well written graphic novel or that it tells an difficult story of the experience of students during the 2009 elections, although, both would make it an important book. Its true value is in illustrating the power of ordinary individuals to use social media and the internet to tell stories that wer...more
It's a tremendously important story to tell, and the book does an okay job of it. If the reader did not closely follow the protests and resulting repression in Iran in 2009 then a lot will be learned here. Comparing it to Persepolis, since I read this one closely following on from the other, Zahra's Paradise is the more impersonal, which for me knocks it down a couple notches. It is not a memoir but rather the story of a "typical" student who took part in the protests and was unluckily one of th...more
I was asked to review a copy of this book for the library system in which I work. This was not an easy book to read. It tells the story of a youth named Mehdi, who disappeared the night of the revolution in Iran (June 2009). Uncovered in the story is a web of lies, deceit, betrayal, and horror-all courtesy of the government. I think what makes this book hard to swallow is that it is a graphic novel. At least with a full text novel, one does not always have images running through their mind. This...more
A wrenching, difficult, but important book to read. Set in Iran from June to August 2009 just after the sham election that put Amadinijhad in power, this graphic novel follows the search for Mehdi, a young man who disappears in the protests and riots that follow. His determined mother will not give up her search for him, with the help of her older son who blogs about their experience. They navigate the circuitous paths of government bureaucracy, traffic jams, bewildering protocols, discovering f...more
Zahra's Paradise, by Amir and Khalil, is a graphic historical novel depicting the great street protests that occurred in Tehran, Iran, June 2009. Three million protested for democracy. So many sons went missing. One particular son, Mehdi, went missing, and his mother and brother, who blogs about the times, search for him desperately. The graphics are picture sharp, loaded with emotion, from taxi drivers caught in traffic to "crane hangings" to rape to tears of mothers. In this book, students lea...more
Originally available only online, Zahra's Paradise is now available in print. It documents the aftermath of the protests that followed the 2009 Iranian presidential election, and though the characters of this graphic novel are fictional, they echo the very real plight of Iranians who live under the Islamic Republic's regime. Mehdi disappears during the protests in June 2009, leaving his mother and brother--a tech-savvy blogger--with no information as to his whereabouts...only the sickening suspi...more
“What mattered to us when we started this project, and what matters to us now, is witnessing the plight and reversing the tragedy that has befallen the Iranian people. That tragedy is personal. Its details and dimensions are unfathomable. It is also legal, political, religious, and cultural.
It was hard for us, like millions of other people outside Iran, to watch Iranian mothers and fathers grieve over the loss of their sons and daughters in Zahra’s Paradise – the actual cemetery – and not feel s...more
It was hard for us, like millions of other people outside Iran, to watch Iranian mothers and fathers grieve over the loss of their sons and daughters in Zahra’s Paradise – the actual cemetery – and not feel s...more
This is a hard book to read emotionally, but it was also a bit hard for me to get into, because the storyline in the first few chapters was a bit confusing. The prologue made sense once I got to the end, but I spent most of the book trying to figure out if it was a literal event and how the man was related to the story. (Yes, I suppose I was having a bit of a slow day.) Once I got past the first few chapters, I was better able to follow the premise. I do think many of the characters were a bit t...more
I finished this graphic novel on the subway home from work last night, where I sat sniffling pathetically reading the afterword among a throng of commuters. I don't know what led me to pick it up--though I do stalk First Second because their projects are so interesting--since I usually shy away from this kind of book. I read for many reasons, but after being traumatized by The Rape of Nanking when I was sixteen, I find reading books about civil unrest, war, violence and rape terribly difficult....more
Zahra's Paradise has courageously given a voice to the 252+ people who were executed in the aftermaths of the protests following the 2010 Iranian Presidential election.
Authored anonymously under the guise of noms de guerre, it follows the story of a mother in search for her son who went missing during the day of the protests.
Granted, some of us would have seen the evident foreshadowing where the story would lead. However, on the whole it does not merely follow the grief of that one woman: rathe...more
Authored anonymously under the guise of noms de guerre, it follows the story of a mother in search for her son who went missing during the day of the protests.
Granted, some of us would have seen the evident foreshadowing where the story would lead. However, on the whole it does not merely follow the grief of that one woman: rathe...more
HEY ALL YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE IN THE WORLD,
please read this book. I can't tell you how devastatingly accurate this graphic novel is in both capturing the zeitgeist of the Green movement's formation in 2009 and portraying the heartbreak and bitterness that has permeated Iranian life since the revolution of the late 70's. It will move you, and remind you of that strange, blurry line between fact and fiction and the instances when those distinctions really don't matter. Besides the main story, the...more
please read this book. I can't tell you how devastatingly accurate this graphic novel is in both capturing the zeitgeist of the Green movement's formation in 2009 and portraying the heartbreak and bitterness that has permeated Iranian life since the revolution of the late 70's. It will move you, and remind you of that strange, blurry line between fact and fiction and the instances when those distinctions really don't matter. Besides the main story, the...more
Eigentlich ein Webcomic, ist Zahra's Paradise jetzt in gedruckter Form erschienen. Zahra's Paradise erzählt die Geschichte Mehdis, der während einer Demo im Iran verschwunden ist. Seine Mutter und sein Bruder, ein Blogger, versuchen Mehdi zu finden und stoßen dabei auf viel Widerstand vom Staat. Durch die Geschichte Mehdis berichten die drei anonymen Autoren über die Missstände im Iran, über die Gräueltaten, die die Regierung im Namen der Religion begeht und über die Unterdrückung freier Meinung...more
قصة مصورة تعطي وجها لمعاناة الشعب الايراني مع الحكم الاسلامي، تحدث في الوقت الحاضر وبعد أحداث مقتل ندى أغا-سلطان، التي أصبحت وجها لجميع الشباب الايراني الذي اختفى في سجون الحكومة
قصة بحث أم عن ابنها، تروى من وجهة نظر اخوه الأكبر..
لا تخلوا من المشاهد الطريفة والتي تعمل هوماج لأيسكر
Escher - Relativity, 1953
ولوحة مايكل أنجلو "خلق ادم"
Michelangelo's creation of Adam
والتي تصور دور الخميني عندما أنزل الوحي على اتباعه من بعده، ومن ضمن هذه الايحات استخدام الرافعة لشنق الناس في كل مكان
الشخصيات تنضح بال...more
قصة بحث أم عن ابنها، تروى من وجهة نظر اخوه الأكبر..
لا تخلوا من المشاهد الطريفة والتي تعمل هوماج لأيسكر
Escher - Relativity, 1953
ولوحة مايكل أنجلو "خلق ادم"
Michelangelo's creation of Adam
والتي تصور دور الخميني عندما أنزل الوحي على اتباعه من بعده، ومن ضمن هذه الايحات استخدام الرافعة لشنق الناس في كل مكان
الشخصيات تنضح بال...more
A really remarkable procedural, first of all for being in graphic novel format, but secondly for being a family's search for a son/brother disappeared during one of the protests following the contested Iranian elections of 2009. Anyone who enjoyed Persepolis should enjoy this, though the focus here is not so much the sexism of the Islamic Republic, but the systematic destruction of all opposition to the vested interests. Equal parts Kafka and Orwell overlaid onto the story as we go through stone...more
Zahra’s Paradise is the name of a an old, storied cemetery outside of Tehran, as well as the name of a fictional blog started by a young Iranian when his brother disappears after the uprisings in summer 2009. The story, told in graphic novel form with a visual style somewhat similar to that of Craig Thompson, follows the young man and his mother as they search Tehran and the Iranian bureaucracy for clues to the brother’s disappearance, although they suspect that they will not see him again.
Whil...more
Whil...more
Would probably give this a three and a half stars if they allowed that. Still, it was a little long and while it was an engaging enough story I'm not sure a graphic novel was the right vehicle, or if it was the right vehicle I think it could have been shortened and made more pointed/suspenseful in order to pull people into the story. I'm guessing that trying to balance the truth with the fiction was difficult but I'm not sure they pulled it off. Also, I must admit I'm not a big fan of 'cause' ar...more
This book does a great job informing it's readers about the revolution in Iran, the protests which ended with the disappearances of many people and the government corruption which obstructed families from finding their lost brothers, sons, and friends. From a formal perspective, the work is slightly more disappointing. The artwork is beautiful and the characters are interesting, if not deeply developed, but there is a real sense that the form exists only to tell the story, share the information,...more
This graphic novel is unbelievable at times, not because it is so far fetched but because it is so real and happening right now. The idea that this is occurring right now in another country is so mind boggling.
This graphic novel has beautiful black and white images that at times are almost photographic in quality and their starkness add to the terror and sadness of this novel. It is beautiful and sad.
This is a very important piece in graphic novel history. It was originally released as an onli...more
This graphic novel has beautiful black and white images that at times are almost photographic in quality and their starkness add to the terror and sadness of this novel. It is beautiful and sad.
This is a very important piece in graphic novel history. It was originally released as an onli...more
Graphic novel about an Iranian family in 2009. The son, Mehta, 17, takes part in protests against the government and never returns home. His mother and his brother are thwarted by corrupt government officials in their efforts to find out what happened to him. With the help of other community members, they do eventually find out the truth of what happened to him and to many others on that day.
Searing - the cruelty and corruption are so unbelievable, yet I found it easy to believe. People in power...more
Searing - the cruelty and corruption are so unbelievable, yet I found it easy to believe. People in power...more
I first came across Zahra's Paradise, as many did, as a webcomic. I thought it was solely a webcomic until a discussion I had with a woman at the :01 Second booth at New York Comic-Con. It seems that it was always intended to be a book, and that it was the decision of the publishers to put the entire title online, for free, as a webcomic.
They made the right call.
Millions saw it. It was translated into 13 languages, with Farsi, Arabic, and Hebrew among those. The art, which is static on the websi...more
They made the right call.
Millions saw it. It was translated into 13 languages, with Farsi, Arabic, and Hebrew among those. The art, which is static on the websi...more
Following close on the heels of the Arab Spring protests in Iran, this book is the gutsy, impassioned follow-up to that inspiring--- yet for many Iranian families, devastating--- historical episode. The artist and writer are freed to speak publically because of the protections of anonymity, and they introduce the reader to a contemporary Iran that is under oppression but still bursting with rebellious, truth-seeking energy. This extraordinary graphic novel is an example of the publishing world a...more
Behesht-i Zahra = Zahra's Paradise, sebuah kawasan perkuburan terbesar di Iran, yang terletak di Tehran.
Ini kisah fiksi, berdasarkan pilihanraya 2009 di Iran, tapi ia tetap membuatkan aku tertanya-tanya, "Benarkah ini berlaku di Iran?"
Sama seperti selepas aku menonton 'The Green Movement', sukar untuk aku hadamkan 'kekejaman' yang berlaku selepas kemenangan Presiden Ahmadinejad dengan majoriti 63% itu. "This actually happened in Iran?"
Oh, tanpa lukisan Sepideh yang bolen, selayaknya aku beri sat...more
Ini kisah fiksi, berdasarkan pilihanraya 2009 di Iran, tapi ia tetap membuatkan aku tertanya-tanya, "Benarkah ini berlaku di Iran?"
Sama seperti selepas aku menonton 'The Green Movement', sukar untuk aku hadamkan 'kekejaman' yang berlaku selepas kemenangan Presiden Ahmadinejad dengan majoriti 63% itu. "This actually happened in Iran?"
Oh, tanpa lukisan Sepideh yang bolen, selayaknya aku beri sat...more
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