L'Arabe du futur : Une jeunesse au Moyen-Orient, 1978–1984

Riad Sattouf recounts his own early childhood as the son of a Syrian father and a French mother. Born in 1978, he grows up first in Libya under Gaddafi, then in Brittany, then in Hafez al-Assad's Syria. The comic follows his father, a pan-Arabist academic who dreams of modernizing the Arab world, and his mother, who tries to adapt to heat, shortages, and rigid social rules. Young Riad, with his blond hair, narrates through a child's eye, with bright colours marking each country.

Fans of memoir comics like Persepolis will find a similar mix of humour and political unease. It gives a ground-level view of dictatorships in the late 1970s and early 1980s, seen through family habits, school, and food rather than headlines, and it is easy to read in a single sitting.

Balanced in tone; an easy read.

Best for readers like The Escapist Adventurer. Which reader are you?