The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf review – an emotionally honest graphic memoir

In this first volume, Sattouf vividly captures his experiences of growing up in Libya and Syria from 1978 to 1984 and hints at the revolutionaries to come

The graphic novel has proved itself again and again. It already has its canon: Art Spiegelman on the Holocaust, Marjane Satrapi on girlhood in Islamist Iran, and, perhaps most accomplished of all, Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza, a work of detailed and self-reflexive history. Edging towards this company comes Riad Sattouf’s childhood memoir of tyranny.

Little Riad’s mother, Clémentine, is French. His father, Abdel-Razak, is Syrian. They meet at the Sorbonne, where Abdel-Razak is studying a doctorate in history. Those with Arab fathers will recognise the prestige value of the title “doctor”. But Abdel-Razak is more ambitious. He really wants to be a president. Studying abroad at least allows him to avoid military service: “I want to give orders, not take them,” he says. When humiliated, he sniffs and rubs his nose.

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