The Arab of the Future 3: A Graphic Memoir: A Childhood in the Middle East, (1985-1987)

In the third installment of the acclaimed series, the Sattouf family begins to implode under the pressure of Hafez al-Assad's regime and the suffocation of their rural Syrian village.

The Arab of the Future is the widely acclaimed, internationally bestselling graphic memoir that tells the story of Riad Sattouf's peripatetic childhood in the Middle East. In the first volume, which covers the years 1978-1984, his family moves between rural France, Libya, and Syria, where they eventually settle in his father's native village of Ter Maaleh, near Homs. The second volume recounts young Riad's first year attending school in Syria (1984-1985), where he dedicates himself to becoming a true Syrian in the country of Hafez al-Assad. In this third volume, (1985-1987), Riad's mother, fed up with the grinding reality of daily life in the village, decides she cannot take it any longer. When she resolves to move back to France, young Riad sees his father torn between his wife's aspirations and the weight of family traditions.

Riad Sattouf is a best-selling cartoonist and filmmaker who grew up in Syria and Libya and now lives in Paris. The author of four comics series in France and a former contributor to the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, Sattouf is now a weekly columnist for l’Obs. He also directed the films The French Kissers and Jacky in the Women’s Kingdom.