Belonging
Karim Miské
Antoine Silvestri
This is the unforgettable tale of a little boy growing up between two cultures: his father’s Muslim Mauritanian culture and his mother’s French, feminist, communist culture.
The graphic novel opens with his beloved grandfather, now senile, letting slip the unspeakable word, « bastard!”. Once said, it hangs in the air: he is French for his « Arab brothers » and a foreigner for the native-born French.
Later, his mother who is engaged in the communist cause takes him to Albania where he discovers the absurdity of totalitarianism with his own eyes and a child‘s common sense.
To refuse to belong to a religion, an ideology, a social class, a “race”. To never choose a side. This is the story of one who feels an “outcast” and decides to make an identity out of it.
