THE ARAB OF THE FUTURE
A Graphic Memoir: A Childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984)
By Riad Sattouf
Translated by Sam Taylor
Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company
153 pages; Paper, $26
Fifty years ago, the Arab world was seized by a new hope. Whether in Cairo or Casablanca, Damascus or Tripoli, the hope was the same - that through higher education, young people would lift their developing nations into an era of peace and modernity. One of these young people was a Syrian scholarship student named Abdel-Razak Sattouf, a firm believer in Pan-Arabism and its promise of a unified, prosperous region. His journey from cheerful liberal to quiet authoritarian is the subject of "The Arab of the Future," a graphic memoir by his son, the comic artist and filmmaker Riad Sattouf.
Shortly after arriving in Paris to complete a doctorate in history at the Sorbonne, Abdel-Razak Sattouf falls in love with a Frenchwoman, Clementine, and with the country itself. ("France is wonderful! People can do whatever they want here! They even pay you to be a student!") When he's not studying, he spends his time listening to Radio Monte Carlo, from which he receives news of the Arab defeat in the 1973 war against Israel. In one of many such contradictions, Abdel-Razak Sattouf seethes with frustration at the failures of the Arab forces, even though he himself has avoided conscription into the Syrian Army by choosing to study abroad.
Abdel-Razak Sattouf successfully defends his doctoral dissertation, and Clementine, now his wife, gives birth to Riad Sattouf. This should be a happy time for the young scholar, but instead he complains that he has received only a cum laude and that offers of employment arrive in the form of letters misspelling his name. Therein lies Abdel-Razak Sattouf's fatal flaw: he is unable to cope with the fact that his self-perception doesn't match the way others perceive him. This, at least in part, explains why he leaps at the offer of a teaching post in Libya.
The Sattouf family lands in Tripoli in 1978. It has been almost a decade since Colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi took power and three years since the publication of the first volume of the Green Book, which presents his "vision of society". The country resembles a construction site, with many buildings in states of repair or disrepair. Pictures of the Brother Leader in military uniform and sunglasses hang everywhere. From this point forward, the story relies on Riad Sattouf's perception of the family's experiences in Libya, even though he was only a toddler at the time. We are being given not memories but reconstructions of memories, whose sources are unclear.
The little house issued to the family by the government is unexpectedly taken over by squatters. Ration lines are long, the food is unappealing and the people smell terrible. Abdel-Razak Sattouf settles down to reading the Green Book and enthusiastically agrees with many of its proclamations. Still, when Col Gaddafi announces that farmers and teachers will swap jobs, Abdel-Razak Sattouf decides to move his family back to France.
Sadly, the reprieve is short. Abdel-Razak Sattouf gets another job, this time in Syria. Like all exiles and immigrants, he returns home dreaming of glory. But Syria under Hafez al-Assad is its own nightmare. There too a cult of personality persists. There too everything is in disrepair. And there too little Riad Sattouf finds the food unappetising, the people strange. He has to contend with bullies, who tease him about his blond hair and call him yahudi (Jew) by way of insult. Yet rather than resist, the boy's father makes accommodations.
The portrait Riad Sattouf draws of Abdel-Razak Sattouf is far from flattering. Despite his education, he comes across as naïve, boorish and not particularly bright. He eats with his mouth open, spouts racist comments and fantasises about plotting a coup d'etat. What rescues him from being the cliche of the Arab brute - and barely - is a good-luck token he takes with him everywhere, a plastic toy bull. From country to country, Abdel-Razak Sattouf unpacks his toy bull and puts it on top of the television. With that small gesture, he allows us to see a side of his personality that illuminates his contradictions.
A former cartoonist for the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, Riad Sattouf has created an exhaustive catalogue of his father's weaknesses. His drawings are more precise than those of Marjane Satrapi and less stylised than those of Zeina Abirached, who each mined similar material in Persepolis and A Game for Swallows. And Riad Sattouf writes in a fluid prose, beautifully translated by Sam Taylor, that makes The Arab of the Future engrossing to read. One hopes that the next volume of this memoir will shed some light not just on the political passions of the Sattouf family but on its personal dynamics.
Already a success in France, The Arab of the Future will do little to complicate most people's perceptions of Libya or Syria. Life in both countries seems like a living hell, with no moments of relief or pleasure. But this book also has occasional flashes of beauty. When Abdel-Razak Sattouf comes across a mulberry tree in Tripoli, the taste of its fruit, like that of Proust's fabled madeleine, takes him back to the carefree days of his childhood, days when the future was still full of possibility.
©2015 The New York Times News Service
