Riyad Satuf. “In 1994, I was 16 years old and I was a semi-psychologist.”

with the publication of volume 6 on November 24 The Arab of the futurecovering the years 1994-2011, Riad Sattouf closes an autobiographical cycle that has become an editorial phenomenon; As of 2014, the series has sold over three million copies and has been translated into over twenty-three languages.

Accessible to all

Success related to the originality and power of the story and contributes to its accessibility to which the author Esther’s Notebooks (2016) has done a lot of work, as he freely admits. My first reader, in my mind, is my Breton grandmother. I wish he could appreciate it The Arab of the future. I work on rhythm, drawing, dialogues, constantly keeping in mind the idea that everyone should be able to immerse themselves in my work. One of the compliments I get the most is when parents and grandparents send me photos of their child or teen catching up. The Arab of the future With the inscription “I don’t know what got into him, he chained the five volumes.”

In the video: “Kif de lecture”.

ungrateful age

In this last part, we find a hero who has not come out of an ungrateful age (“In 1994, I’m 16 years old and I’m a half-psycho”), his mother, who is desperate after the kidnapping of Fadi, the youngest, by Abdel, the father of her three sons returned Syria, and old Breton grandparents who no longer know which saint to dedicate themselves to. Go beyond the yellow of Libya and the pink of Syria, the first albums that made it possible to embody a change of scenery through color; and there are touches of red to emphasize both the father’s physical absence and his omnipresence in the minds of his elders, literally haunted by a paternal voice that is scandalous beyond what he himself experiences or sees…

The designer immerses us in the blue and white coolness of France

Autobiographical

If it reveals what happened to Abdel and Fadi, then this 6th volume also has the great interest of telling how its author became the artist he is today; Christophe Blaine, Joan Sfar, and Mathieu Sapin, The Mad Cow Training Years (and Psychotherapy).

“The best times of my childhood and adolescence were when I was poking my nose into novels and comics, and I’m really happy to see other people experimenting with my own albums. I loved and continue to love making comics because I was deeply influenced by the first ones I read as a child. It made me try to recreate this shock in the readers… That’s a bit of what I tell in this last volume, for the rest.

Clever mix of sounds

However, the director beautiful childrens (2009) assures us that he describes his family and life less than romantically from reality; two hours or two years and it changes everything…” He reveals, however, how many of the recurring themes and motifs in his work are born, such as the skillful symmetry of tone, between drama and humor, the unusually accurate recovery of sensations. and emotions, from the scent of aunts’ sweat to the scent of teenage love. – or even a desire to capture parts of reality “that comics have never shown before.” So with the violence that permeates human relationships, with their strangeness, sometimes with their absurdity.