Freedom Hospital

by Hamid Sulaiman, Kai Pfeiffer (Translator)

Freedom Hospital est la première bande dessinée de Hamid Sulaiman, artiste plasticien syrien qui a fui son pays en 2011 et trouvé refuge en France après une année dans la clandestinité. Sulaiman s'inspire d'histoires vécues par des personnes de son entourage pour raconter les débuts de la guerre en Syrie, des premières manifestations pacifiques de 2011 jusqu'aux prémices de Daech. Son récit est centré sur le Freedom Hospital, un hôpital clandestin créé par une militante pacifique, Yasmine, dans une ville imaginaire semblable à beaucoup de petites villes de province syriennes… Dans cet hôpital cohabitent avec Yasmine une dizaine de personnages, malades et soignants, reflétant la diversité de la société syrienne, un kurde, un alaouite, une journaliste franco-syrienne, des membres de l'Armée libre et un islamiste radical. Leurs relations vont évoluer en fonction des événements. Engagement politique, trahisons, retournements d'alliance et l'horreur de la guerre sont au cœur de l'histoire de ce groupe d'individus, pantins de l'histoire, pris dans une tourmente dont les enjeux les dépassent totalement. À travers ce terrible récit, mis en scène de façon expressionniste, avec de très forts contrastes de lumière qui noient les hommes et la ville sous un déluge d'ombres et de lumière, Hamid Sulaiman pousse un cri de rage contre la guerre, pour l'amour et la paix.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, War, Historical Fiction, Middle East, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics

287 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

This past week I read The Arab of the Future, volume 3 of Riad Sattouf's memoir about growing up in (mostly) Syria and France, set in the eighties, an amusing tale of an economic and political system in chaos. I also read Don Brown's YA-oriented Unwanted, stories focused on 21st century Syrian refugees, a continuing tragedy. Freedom Hospital is graphic fiction, historical fiction, set in 2012. 40, 000 people have already at this point died at this point in what was known as the Syrian Arab Spring, what people had hoped (and still hope) was the beginning of a revolution against a brutal regime that has had international nightmarish implications.

The story focuses on various young people working toward the revolution out of a small clandestine hospital. The effect isn't so much historical as "literary" which is to say it gives the feel of what it might have been for young hopeful people living in political chaos, with people dead and dying all around. It feels in story and artwork "poetic" which is to say all the connections to historical events or plot or character are less detailed, more intimated. It's scratch-off black and white artwork, sort of blotchy, which makes me think it is consistent with the diy nature of the hospital. There's a 12 character list at the opening to help you follow, maybe too many characters for a short book. My attraction to it is my third way of presenting connections to an international political disaster largely ignored by the international community. What can journalists and other writers do to bear witness? This would not be useful were it the only thing you read about Syria today, but it is useful as part of the puzzle.

[Carmen · Rating 1 out of 5]

"I'm neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I'm a realist. I never thought I'd see the day we'd be pandering to the likes of Abu Qatada and Salem." pg. 214

This isn't a good book, I'm sorry to say. I'm not even sure what it's about. I got the main message: Syria is hell.

That's it. I stumbled through the book. If you asked me who the characters were and what their motivations were, I'd be unable to answer. If you asked me "What happened?" in the book, I'd be unable to answer. Who was good? Who did what to whom? Who betrayed whom? What the heck was going on? I have no idea.

I know Hamid Sulaiman fled Syria and wrote this book to shed some light on what was going on there, but he failed. I have no idea what's going on after reading this book.

The book starts with a cast of characters and that's ALWAYS a bad sign, IMO. If I can't tell your characters' stories and faces and lives apart from reading the book, we're already in trouble. You're even acknowledging this by making a Cast of Characters so we are in even deeper trouble.

TL;DR The book is confusing. I couldn't follow the 'plot' and honestly had no real idea of what was going on. "Syria is hell" is basically the only thing I took away from this.

NAMES IN THIS BOOK:

Yasmin f
Sophie f
Abu Taysir m
Abu Azab m
"One Eyed" Elias/Jamal m
Haval m
Yazan m
Salem m
Walid Abu Qatada m
Zahabiah f
Fawaz Al-Fawaz m

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the kind of book I always feel bad about not liking better. It's important subject matter about real lives being destroyed or sent into upheaval. And yet, all I do is wonder why the author didn't provide more context for the events and characters who wander through his tale, and I end up spending too much time focused on the inadequacies of the story and art.

Some people live, some people die, and this story does not do much to make me care about any of them. It doesn't help that this is a fictionalized account of the Syrian Civil War, and so I have to wonder how much license is being taken. Also, there is a constant refrain of x number of days pass and y number of people die. It's a horrifying reminder of the toll, but it also serves to start causing a detachment and makes me think of that awful old Stalin quote: "The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic." It's staggering to think how this story is set like five or six years ago, and how the death and suffering has just continued unabated in the interim. But again, the creator doesn't manage to bring this home to me between the covers of his book.

And, no, the author having a character acknowledge the cheesiness of an amnesia storyline in the script does not then make the amnesia storyline not cheesy.

The art is full of big black blotches that at times seem less like illustrations and more like Rorschach test inkblots. Characters are drawn in an almost impressionistic style with a minimum of lines, so they are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Action is sometimes difficult to follow.

I was hoping for something that would educate and move me, but instead I'm left wishing I had read something else.

[Lewis Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

another great graphic novel about middle eastern conflict. although sulaimans style of completely black and white, more formal(?) than cartoon, is different to almost all graphic novels i've read before, i really enjoyed it (except for one frame parodying the sistine chapel with two characters passing a zoot,gosh i couldnt help but cringe). good for basic knowledge of the early stages of the syrian civil war, leaving u with lots of pointers of where else to research etc. also highlighting hypocrisy from some of the powers involved, the way it points out where the arms are sold from. Dope book, Hamid!

[Christine Lucia Asha · Rating 4 out of 5]

MUST READ BOOKS in every genre:
Thriller Say Goodbye
Memoir The Yellow House
SciFi Murder by Memory
Romance Time Loops & Meet Cutes

If you do or don't know the story of the Syrian Revolution, this is a little hard to get into but easy to understand. I think the pictures themselves are vague enough to be real and also generic at the same time.

A good introduction to the decades-long despoticAssad dynasty rule in Syria.

[Kai Weber · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is hard to find the right words to say about this book. The war in Syria is atrocious and abominable, and we need to know about it. I am not going to say, that in face of war only non-fictional writing is justified. No, quite the contrary, some of the greatest pieces of art are dealing with human suffering in war-times: "Guernica", "Im Westen nichts Neues", "Apocalypse Now", etc. etc.
"Freedom Hospital" is a legitimate personal expression of an artist about the Syrian civil war. Yet I doubt that it is either useful for understanding it better or a great piece of art. And the only way for me to judge this book is by taking it as a piece of art:
Much of my depreciation of this book is a problem I have with the whole genre (graphic novels and comics): I can't stand trivial text. If this genre is to be a compound of two diverse arts, the art of literature and the art of drawing, then I expect the artists of this genre to try to excel in both of these involved arts. And the conversation text in this book is commonplace in an embarrassing way, trivial, artless, below mediocre, simply bad. Now if the pictures were great, they might save some of the negative impression I had from the book. And I must admit that unlike the text, the pictures do attempt at being art. It can arouse an impression of dark times in a dark place. Nothing unexpected in view of the topic, appropriate. But why are the characters so flat, so indistinguishable? This doesn't make sense, as the dramatis personae in the beginning of the book and the development of the story treats the characters clearly as individuals, as distinguishable. And the same is true for the locations: Undamaged houses and rubble are hardly distinguishable either. I do believe that the author is mourning over the loss of his country Syria, and he is clearly in favor of the political anti-Assad opposition (not in favor of the islamist opposition, though), but he treats the country without love when he draws it.
All in all this seems to be a rambling book to me. I need to get my information and my art about the tragedy of Syria from somewhere else. Any suggestions?

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Freedom Hospital is a mix of fact and fiction, based around an underground Syrian hospital which tends to injured rebels. At the start of the book, it feels like the rebels wanted a peaceful solution to the country's problems. As time goes on, and the death toll climbs, they are turned to violence too. This leaves a space for extremists to recruit those who feel failed by both sides and we see how Isis tried to take advantage of the situation.

As well as these three factions, of course there are those who just want to get on with their lives (along with their human rights so quashed by Assad). The daily death count printed at the top of the pages is a saddenign reminder of the senseless loss of the conflict.

Assad's regime is propped up by foreign weapons, and throughout the pages, the tanks, planes and artillery are tagged by who provided what (a lot from Russia, but tother countries aren't innocent either).

If you're quite well-informed of the Syria situation, I'm not sure reading this will add much, but it serves as a good introduction. It's not an intensely personal approach as Hamid has used anecdotes from many of his friends who stayed behind, rather than writing an account of his own experience.

I'm not a huge fan of the artwork but its sparseness does fit with the subject matter here.

[Nallasivan V. · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as the remarkable story that Freedom Hospital tells, it doesn't feel very effective.

The advantage that comic book format has over other mediums is the power of the visuals. Hamid Sulaiman's visuals are sketchy - minimalistic and communicating more with negative spaces rather than drawn lines. The style is effective at places, evoking a rebellious street mural kind of poignancy. But at many other places, where the critical drama happens, it falls short. One wonders if a Joe Sacco kind of attention to detail could have helped. The overall effect of Hamid's style is to make it feel like a skim through an otherwise deeply humanist tale.

[Nico T · Rating 5 out of 5]

only downside: a mix of fiction, real events

Yet a powerful insight into the once proclaimed "democratic revolutions"
Whilst the book is vey anti-Assad in the beginning, it shows the true nature of war and how nearly all participants turn to monsters with more and more sufferings and retaliation.

[Larakaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hartes aber sehr gutes und wichtiges Buch

[Graeme · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's near impossible to tell an uplifting or a comprehensive story of the still ongoing wars within Syria and this book doesn't attempt to do so, but tells a story of complicated situations that can't be contained within a binary of good and evil. Sulaiman, himself a Syrian refugee, attempts to educate foreigners on the international scope of the war in his home country and show that there are kind and caring people within, who believe in the human right to survive. The Syrian war carries so much tragedy, day after day, and as foreigners we don't get to see many individual stories on the news. This novel was finished in 2016 and just a few months ago in 2019, new terrible dimensions of the civil war unfold, drawing more deaths and despair. F@ck.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s critical to understand the complex war in Syria, a revolution that began as a hopeful resistance of a tyrannical leader turning arms on his people, that turned into a conflict between a tyrannical government and terrorist groups of the Islamic brotherhood, backed by the money and military power of Russia and the US. However, if I hadn’t already read about this, I think this book would confuse me, and graphic novels are known for their ability to make complex topics more understandable: in that regard, this failed.

The art was minimalist and sketchy, which could give an atmosphere of chaos and mess, but could also just confuse the narrative. The characters were so blurry that I could never tell who was who, much less find a way to connect and care for them, especially when the entire text was dialogue driven only.

However, it is an important topic and one could do worse things than pick this up. I admire the writer and what he endured, and it was a very fast read.

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this more than I did.
This is a graphic novel portraying a resistance in Syria. A lot of the images are beautiful and shocking. But it was hard to keep track of characters throughout the story as a lot of them were drawn so similarly. I had a lot of questions at the end. But I appreciated a lot of these black and white drawings depicting what life was like 2012 Syria.

[Tamara Agha-Jaffar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story by Hamid Sulaiman, translated by Francesca Barrie, is a graphic novel about the civil war raging in Syria. Inspired by his own experiences, Sulaiman blends fact with fiction to depict the bloody carnage and devastation caused by the conflict.

The novel opens with a brief biography of each of the characters. It is March 2012. Yasmin, a young Syrian, and her childhood friend, Sophie, a journalist of Syrian origin, are smuggled back to Syria. Yasmin has established Freedom Hospital, an underground Syrian hospital in the fictitious town of Houria in Northern Syria. Sophie is there to film a documentary about Freedom Hospital and its occupants.

Revealed periodically are back stories of each of the characters and how they came to be involved with the hospital. We witness their desperate struggle to save lives with the meager resources available. Meanwhile, the bombing continues unabated. The mounting death toll is disclosed every few days and printed at the top of the page as a recurring drum beat in the background. Also identified is the type of type of weapon used, whether gun, bomb, plane, or tank, as well as where it was manufactured. Sulaiman acknowledges he inserts footage from YouTube videos, photographs of demonstrations, excerpts from speeches, and propaganda slogans to pepper the text. And in the midst of the carnage, romance blossoms between a few of the characters.

The illustrations are rendered starkly in black and white. They resemble dark blotches and have a sketchy, hurried quality, perhaps to reinforce the dark, haphazard condition of the hospital, located in a dark place at a dark time. Some of the characters are drawn with only partial outlines, suggesting a corresponding loss of life and limb.

In his Postscript, Sulaiman admits he cobbled together bits and pieces of his own experiences and the experiences of people he knew. Unfortunately, this patchwork quality is evident. The characters are flat and never come alive. They function as mouth pieces, spouting slogans from one faction or the other. The dialogue is stilted and unrealistic. The narrative contains gaps and jumps around, disrupting the flow.

Sulaiman’s intent is to familiarize people with the complex, political situation in Syria; to render the diversity of characters involved in the civil war; and to show how extremists attempted to co-opt opposition to the Syrian government. He is to be applauded for wanting to shed light on a very tragic situation. But his execution, no doubt heartfelt and well-intentioned, is somewhat scanty and sporadic, qualities that may be attributed to the nature of the medium more than to anything else.

Recommended with reservations.

My book reviews are also available at www.tamaraaghajaffar.com

[KaWoodtiereads · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 2021 I am trying to read more graphic novels. I picked up a copy of this while browsing at my local library. It is a fictional story that takes place in 2012 during the very real Syrian Civil War (which is still going on). We are introduced to a cast of characters and a story centered around an underground hospital where wounded rebels and civilians are treated. You get to see different perspectives of people living in a war-torn country including those who have opportunity to flee but can't because of their allegiance to their homeland, and those who are willing to fight to the death. The illustrations are stark black and white, sometimes heavily detailed other times seeming to look like ink blots. I felt the story was good, but needed more to make it feel like an actual story and not just a series of vignettes. I did like the subtle descriptions of military equipment supplied by world powers used to harm/kill civilians and the reminder of the death toll as we see how the cast handles the constant unrest for over a year.

[Pat]

A book I found both fascinating yet a bit flawed
The strengths was that the author tried to make it about people but at times it lost focus to deal with the larger picture. This larger picture for most would be confusing as Syria did not get a lot of international attention at the time. During this time I was living in Sudan and worked with a couple of teachers who had to flee Syria.
The art was very dark and at times hard to make out individuals.
The final and most tragic point was the listing of death numbers as at a certain point the human mind cannot comprehend it anymore.

[Nihar Mukund · Rating 4 out of 5]

While a quick, yet heartbreaking read, it does become a slight task to keep the characters straight. The reason might be my own cultural ignorance, or the art style's unwillingness to detail the characters, which, you know, makes sense. This "distance of the documentary" mostly works. I might have to read this once again to fully grasp this fragmented tale.

I do wish, however, that the (much-needed) information had been expressed in more creative ways, rather than turning characters into literal mouthpieces.

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Viene illustrata una storia di resistenza dove le persone in difficoltà fanno ciò che possono per aiutarsi e, nel concreto, sopravvivere. Tutto gravita attorno a un ospedale clandestino, tra operatori e feriti, le loro dinamiche interne e il loro rapporto con la guerra in corso.
Mi ha colpita come nello scandire il tempo tra gli avvenimenti non si utilizzi solo il numero di giorni trascorsi ma anche il numero di vittime.

[Geve_ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this quite hard to follow. it was clear the author knew these characters, but i had a hard time with them. Maybe it was the author's familiarity with the story and characters that made him leave it so sparse, but that doesn't help the reader. The story jumped around too much and left me to fill in too many blanks.
The art was all rough black and white, and at times quite beautiful in its simplicity, but at other times didn't convey the story or action at all. I think the art took away from the overall story more than it added to it.

I was disappointed in this book. It's not that the story is bad, it's that the presentation doesn't represent the story well.

[Chelsea Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the military equipment is labelled with its model number and the country that sold it to either side. Even though it's a work of fiction I thought that was an effective device.

[Rowan Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some page turns took my breath away, and many aspects of the storytelling and details of life in Syria during the start of a cataclysmic conflict challenged much of what I thought I already knew about the "war" and its many sides. For simply that, FREEDOM HOSPITAL is pretty much essential reading to engender better understanding of and empathy for the refugees fleeing Syria and those citizens that have chosen to stay.

That said, some of the art is unclear or poorly rendered to such a degree that it negatively affects the reading experience. I don't know Hamid Sulaiman's background as an artist or storyteller, and he certainly renders many moments with stark beauty and pathos throughout the book, but it feels at times like he's been given unbridled freedom within the medium because of his expertise on life in Syria at the beginning of the Arab Spring, not because he is fully equipped to tell that story. Let me be clear: I'm not suggesting that Sulaiman's story should have been handed to another writer/artist to be told for him. It's of supreme value that the histories of the world be told by the people who've been through them, but perhaps a little more editorial input from the original French publishers could have resulted in a more effective book. There's often dialogue present that serves neither the narrative , nor the characters or themes - at least in my interpretation - and the flow of the story often feels jerky or arbitrarily jumpy and withholding of key background information.

Though perhaps my last comments were intentional formal statements about the pointless, maddening and unpredictable nature of living in a warzone. Throughout the book I did connect to the characters with ease, feeling pangs of sorrow when they left the story or took a path that drove them apart from others. Sulaiman doesn't set you up for a feel-good ending: some characters make it through to the end of the book, but nobody gets what they want, and they all have scars to show for it. "Nobody's right. Nobody's wrong." It's a tough truth to accept, but Sulaiman tries to give us the tools and insight to be able to look past right and wrong by illustrating a time and place where a few people tried to help those in most need of it in the face of grave danger and a country crumbling around them. For all its formal and narrative flaws, its purity of intent and message are unassailable.

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“’Do you know how many die every day because of your stupid quarrel?’ ‘We died 1,400 years ago. Why are people still fighting in our name?’ ‘Get out of my house and that’s a good question-ask your followers!’”

Freedom hospital is an underground hospital in Syria, which does its best to save and heal the war wounded. Sulaiman makes a brave and bold attempt to translate the madness and murder of the civil war currently raging throughout the country.

The story is drawn entirely in black and white, which enhances the grim atmosphere. The spare and stark art work lends the horror a sense of gritty confusion, which can sometimes intrude upon the story, but it does faithfully preserve the bleak atmosphere, in which millions have endured.

We see that this is all done with weapons from Russia, USA, France, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and that the only certainties are the uncertainties and the escalating body count which continues as I type this. This is a gruesome, intense and occasionally challenging read that succeeds in dragging the murky horror of Syria into graphic form for largely ignorant western readers.

[Jim Angstadt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Freedom Hospital: A Syrian Story
Hamid Sulaiman, Francesca Barrie (Translator)

This graphic novel gives an insight into Syria's internal war and turmoil during the 2010-13 period. Yasmin is trying to start and run an independent hospital for the victims of the fighting, but with the chronic shortages of supplies, anything resembling normal health care is out the window. Drugs, equipment, staff, quality, are simply not available. It's chaotic and dangerous.

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like anything new or significant. We have become acclimated to war and turmoil for the last 150 years or so. If one counts the "Cold War" as war, then most of the twentieth century has been war after war after war. Intellectually, we know that war is destructive and can crush human life and spirit, but politically we support war. We can argue that some wars must be fought, but we know there will be casualties, death, destruction, and sorrow.

Another sad data point from the front.

[Anaïs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Avec ce livre, on parcourt des pages témoignant de la situation syrienne qui, depuis maintenant environ 7 ans, est délicate à comprendre notamment par le reste du monde. Un régime qui, parce qu'apeuré, devient apeurant en réponse. Cela semble commencer avec l'arrestation de civils innocents potentiellement opposés au régime et des exécutions ayant lieu lors de manifestations se voulant pacifiques. Puis cela devient de la torture. Alors les rebelles s'entraident et s'organisent (ici au sein d'un hôpital soignant les rebelles) jusqu'à ce que les "vrais" terroristes débarquent envers et contre tout. La fin devient alors le récit de survivants qui continuent à se mouvoir à contre-sens d'un régime qui oublie et supprime ses citoyens.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A messy attempt to depict some of the confusion and chaos happening in Syria. I like that Sulaiman has depicted the chaos through a hospital, but his impartiality to the factions presented make for a dispassionate reading experience. A lot of the panels are pure expedition and don't take advantage of the format to tell something bigger.

I often found myself feeling teleported around scenes in a heartbeat and not truly caring for any of the characters (who I frequently confused with each other.)

[Emilia P]

I appreciate less and less work that is based on true world situations that is not transparently, but also completely, fictional. Like I am reading a book about these people! They seem real and complex! But wait they are symbols of a point you want to make! Please just make that clear from the get-gooooo.
I guess its especially tricky in the already liminal/tenuous/what is precedent space of graphic novels?
The story is pretty good, the illustrations are a little cheat-y, but the lack of transparency to the way the reader is manipulated grates on me. Crank crank crank. :P

[Maaike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hartverscheurend verslag van de neerwaartse spiraal van de oorlog in Syrië. Sommige illustraties waren prachtig en emotioneel, maar vaak was het verhaal moeilijk te volgen en het was een wat onduidelijke mix van feit en fictie.

[Edgar · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm conflicted by this book. It has a number of strong qualities that seem undermined by the craft of the author. I feel, at times, that I was reading a great work produced by someone ten years before they would be capable of doing it justice. Still, it is a book very much worth reading if I think it may be superceded by other works and reduced by time.

Sulaiman has knack for making characters work. They're all very well defined in terms of their interests and ambitions. Dialogue mostly gleams, but on occasion, it comes off as it maybe rushing to push along the story and as part of a rougher draft.

The passage of time is marked by a death count that wears the reader down. I felt myself feeling like the characters do, weighed down by the violence around them with seemingly no end in sight even in disbelief at its own continuation. Depictions of real life videos and photos are inserted into the book as filtered through the book's style. It is one of many creative decisions that ultimately make this book greater than the sum of its parts.

While the situation in Syria may be extremely complicated by any number of actors and agents, the simple graphic style of the story serves the setting well. But just because the style is simple, it does not mean it is elegant. The execution here is messy and clunky. The expressions of characters are too basic and inconsistent especially when it comes to women. The body language of the characters often exists only in a minimal way.

In some pages, silhouettes tell the story and they are used to great effect. I understand the author may have wanted to boil down the visuals to its most basic point in these pages, but the composition in these panels communicates too little to tell us anything of significance. Almost every panel is stiffly posed. Whenever the story requires a sense of movement, Sulaiman loses his hold on the craft.

In comparison, when Sulaiman includes them, his backgrounds are quite striking and dynamic. The high contrast style works marvelously here. At around the midpoint, pages 138 and 139 in my edition, there is a wonderful sequence where the characters set up sniper cover on a street. It is the visual highlight of the book and it may be telling that the characters occupy little real estate on these two pages.

But the book accomplishes what the author sets out to do. I came away from the book, not understanding the conflict to a greater extent, but seeing it with a more sensitive, grounded point of view gifted by the author. Am I personally bringing it down too many points because of what I want to be?

Is this type of journalism, one where a timely comic is created to explain a place, people and time, bound to the same standards as a regular entry of fiction? I don't know, but my ultimate recommendation is that you check this book out and make your conclusion as to what a work like this means.

[Carol Chapin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some great graphic novels in print. The ones I like best are those that give me a history lesson (“Showa” by Shigeru Mizuki) or that portray life in a stressed area of the world. For the latter, I always think of “Gaza Strip” by Joe Sacco. This book is in that tradition and takes place in Syria in 2012.

The main character is Yasmin, a young Syrian woman who sets up an underground hospital in a town in northern Syria. In a postscript, the author explains that the book is a blend of fact and fiction. The town is fictitious, and so, I assume, is Yasmin. Sulaiman uses a cast of twelve intertwined characters to present the various factions and situations in play in the country.
Initially, I had a little trouble keeping track of these characters, but the author includes a chart at the start of the book with a drawing of each character and a one paragraph description.

Every character turns out to be important and meaningful. They represent three basic factions in the conflict. Yasmin was an early protester against the Assad regime who was at one time arrested for this. Abu Taysir is the local head of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Qatada joins the jihadists. The Colonel works for the regime. Sunnis oppose Shiites.

Everywhere there is violence, violence, violence. The timeframe of the book is one year, divided into sections for the different seasons. The top of a page often includes a note: “Three days later: another 893 killed.” The author labels weapons used in the conflict: “M16 made in the US, Islamic State”; MI-28 made in Russia, Syrian Army”. The weapons come from all over the first world.

Yasmin survives and carries on, somehow retaining a grim hopefulness.

The novel gives one a sense of this ongoing, complex tragedy.

[Sidra · Rating 2 out of 5]

This graphic novel highlights the messiness and confusion that followed the early days of the Syrian Revolution at a time when most hoped for a quick victory. And it was written at a time when hope was buried. But I wasn’t a fan of how this went about blending fact with fiction.

The art style frustrates me. The blotchy-inky B&W graphics reflect the war’s chaos, it is powerful in communicating moments of senseless violence. However, it comes at the cost of overcomplicating and confusing the narrative. The style made it hard to follow what was happening with the graphic novel’s 12(!) central characters. We only get snippets of each story, with jarring shifts between slice of life and nationwide events.

It’s not a book for someone with no background on Syria to pick up to learn about what happened. Hamid builds a diverse cast of characters that, on the surface, seems to represent the development of all sides. But creating one two-dimensional character per community overly simplified things. The author’s voice and his attempts to negotiate his personal experiences in Syria permeates through what he platforms. As it should, I am a strong believer in the idea that art and journalism do not have to be detached to be “true" or valuable. But, personal disagreements with some choices disregarded, it should be noted this comes at the expense of silencing other experiences.

Long story short: I wanted to be a fan. good in reflecting a general atmosphere of crushed and redirected hope, not so good in characterization, story building, and merging fact and fiction.