Hakim's odyssey /

French graphic creator Toulmé transforms "the words that were entrusted" to him into this stupendous testimony of survival. The first of three volumes (the subsequent two have published in France and are scheduled to be published in the U.S. in 2022) begins with Toulmé's personal attempt to humanize the horrific immigration statistics, among which "Syrians make up the vast majority of the refugees trying to get to Europe." A journalist friend led Toulmé to Hakim. Within the first 10 pages, readers know that Hakim has been living in Aix-en-Provence since 2015, but his labyrinthine path from homeland to safety will reveal years of dangerous, challenging displacements. In Syria, Hakim was a gardener managing his own nursery, successful enough to buy his own apartment. By 2011, war destroyed life as he knew it. As chaos ensued, Hakim was imprisoned and tortured without cause, and his younger brother disappeared. Leaving was his only option, taking him through Lebanon, Jordan, then Turkey--desperately searching for ways to help his family back home. Toulmé affectingly uses a palette of blues, purples, and reds for his present-day exchanges with Hakim, then renders the past in browns and blues; his art is invitingly sublime throughout. Chute deftly translates. Volume 1 ends in the midst of another transition, leaving captivated readers only wanting more, more, more.

It's profoundly disturbing how quickly a typical, middle-class life can be violently disrupted, as Toulmé shows in the harrowing, frustrating saga of Hakim, who fled Syria during the country's ongoing civil war. Hakim, whom Toulmé interviewed in order to adapt his story into a comic, is 25 at the beginning of the Arab Spring protests in 2011, when he's arrested and tortured during a government crackdown. Once freed, Hakim tries to settle in Beirut, Amman, and Antalya, living with relatives and high school friends. Along the way, he falls in love and repeatedly encounters the prejudice of locals toward Syrian refugees. Though he was once a business owner, it's incredibly difficult for him to find work even as a menial laborer. Toulmé adeptly captures how Hakim's life slides into sudden chaos, as well as his maddening inability to find consistent work. Visually, Toulmé's art recalls Riad Sattouf's Arab of the Future, though doesn't quite rise to its nuanced characterizations. Toulmé too often inserts himself into the narrative, reminding readers of his role as interviewer and interpreting the significance of Hakim's story and, in doing so, breaks its narrative flow. Meanwhile, sections laying out the larger geopolitical backdrop end up feeling rather didactic. Despite some flaws, Hakim's story adds to the growing body of graphic literature on the refugee experience, with insightful perspective on how an ordinary life can crumble. (Oct.)