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Sattouf's father influenced the title of the memoir through his ideal of raising his son as an "Arab of the future." Early in the story, the elder Sattouf proclaims, "I'd change everything among the Arabs. I'd force them to stop being bigots, to educate themselves, and to enter into the modern world. I'd be a good President." A major theme of the novel is how young Riad looks up to his father as a hero. Abdul-Razak, however, is portrayed as a complex character, being educated, ambitious and a loving father, yet also hypocritical, sexist, racist, and simultaneously authoritarian towards his wife and children yet almost infantile in his relationships with his mother and elder brother. Abdul-Razak appears particularly conflicted over religion; he prefers to describe himself as a secular modernizer (he drinks wine, eats pork, and does not pray) but he also exhorts his son to respect God and to learn to read the Qur'an, seemingly motivated by the pressure of his conservative family and Syrian society. Stéphane Jarno, « L'Arabe du futur vole de succès en succès», Télérama, 7 octobre 2016 ( lire en ligne, consulté le 8 octobre 2016) sa sortie, le premier tome connait un succès critique [8 ]. Il remporte différents prix, dont le Fauve d'or d’Angoulême [9 ].
As you would expect, it’s mostly focused on Riad and his family but we also learn what life was like in these countries at the time as well. For example Libya under Gaddafi where housing was free to all - like a bizarre game of finders keepers, you found somewhere that was empty and moved in! - and the basic foods that were doled out to everyone because supermarkets didn’t exist. It was a third world country and, reading the excerpts from Gaddafi’s Green Book here, it’s easy to see why conditions were so bad when this lunatic was running the show! Riad’s Syrian father, Abdul-Razak, is the first of his family to read and is (therefore?) considered a great scholar in Syria. He is sent to study history at the Sorbonne and manages to wed an unworldly French student, Clementine, who is studying in Paris. Clementine is from a small village in Brittany and when they both graduate, Abdul-Razak accepts a position teaching in Tripoli, Libya. You have got to read this to enjoy it. I don’t want to spoil your fun. It sounds just about what you might expect with Qaddafi in charge, only even worse than you could imagine. This memoir in the form of a graphic novel by Riad Sattouf is positively terrifying. It only takes an evening to read, and I can guarantee you will not want to put it down. En 2018, selon RTL [19 ], les ventes pour les trois premiers volumes représentent plus d'un million et demi d'exemplaires et les traductions existent dans vingt-deux langues, mais pas en arabe.Sattouf doesn’t do anything particularly special with his style of storytelling, either literally or visually, he just tells it straightforwardly but he does it so well. He’s a natural storyteller who’s perfectly suited to the comics medium and that makes reading this such a joy. This is the first part of Riad Sattouf’s childhood memoirs, The Arab of the Future, and it is superb! With a Syrian father and French mother, the small family travels across Europe as his father gets work as an associate professor in Tripoli, Libya, during Gaddafi’s reign, before briefly jumping to Brittany, France, and ending up in nightmarish Syria under Hafez al- Assad. Eventually another version was released which cut out some details but combined all 6 books into 1. Frédéric Potet, « «L’Arabe du futur» de Riad Sattouf: autopsie d’un succès», Le Monde, 30 juin 2015 With Clémentine transcribing his words and "rendering them intelligible," Abdul-Razak obtains a Ph.D. in history from the Sorbonne. In 1980, he moves the family to Libya after accepting a job as an associate professor. (He is paid in US dollars, with the funds sent to an account in the Channel Islands.)
Sattouf is choosing what to tell us about his upbringing with the consciousness of an adult. He shows the peculiarities of early education in France, and Syria. Both have failures, as a system. It’s a wonder we survive at all, but less surprising that we exhibit the flaws we do. He has a finely honed skill for cutting away the extraneous, and revealing the kernel of his experience. He makes it laughable, but at heart, it is also terrifying. Laurent Bonnefoy, « L'Arabe du futur ou la force des préjugés - Une bande dessinée marquée par les stéréotypes», Orient XXI.info, 23 janvier 2015 ( lire en ligne, consulté le 21 décembre 2016) The author speaking of his father: "In 1967 he had been devastated by the Six Day War, when Egypt, Jordan and Syria were crushed by the Israelis. Then, in 1973, like all the Syrians of his generation he managed to transform the Arab defeat in the Yom Kippur War into an "almost victory".Abdul-Razak works as a professor in Syria. Among his students is one of the bodyguards of Hafez al-Assad. Abdul-Razak is torn between his desire to be an enlightened modern man and his loyalty to his conservative family. Clémentine and the children travel to Brittany for her to give birth to her third child, Fadi. After they return to Syria, Abdul-Razak has made his peace with his family. He agrees to have Riad circumcised. At the end of the book, he announces that he will begin a new job in Saudi Arabia. The Arab of the Future: A Graphic Memoir by Riad Sattouf". thearabofthefuture.com . Retrieved 2016-11-02.
The flood of rich, detailed, authentic, often completely unexpected observations is both disturbing and mesmerizing, thanks in part to the clever narrative strategy of presenting them from a vague through-the-eyes-of-a-child-yet-filtered-through-adult-awareness perspective that does not appear to have any agenda whatsoever: it appears to do little more than taking in all kinds of weirdness with wide-open eyes, though ultimately, of course, it does provide a critique of both Arab-Muslim and Western attitudes and lifestyles. The thing is: the results don't feel pedantic or manipulative in the slightest, and this is crucial to the appeal of the story. Just following the father around is an experience unlike any I’ve ever had: I mean, I never know what this guy is going to do or say next, because his belief system and his values seem so all-over-the-place to me… and yet, somehow, magically, he feels like a perfectly organic human being. Which is what makes all the strangeness and madness and uncertainty so compelling!It might be said, though, that the emulation of other people's behavior is one of the themes of the novel. Little Riad is encouraged by the Syrian women in his family's circle to engage in violent play with other boys, and he finds it enjoyable. The children around him emulate adults' violent behavior. Ideas seem to travel around, transmitted from mind to mind. Riad’s father, Abdul-Razak, is the star of this book. Riad writes him as a complex but real person. The only educated member of his Syrian family, he comes across as charming, funny, eccentric, bull-headed, tragic, conflicted, and strict. He certainly seems to come down on Riad quite heavily for not being able to read or wanting to learn despite his son being 3 years old at the time! Once the narrative shifts to Syria though you understand why his father is this way - THIS is where he grew up? Woah. Dans le troisième tome, Riad met l'accent sur les différences culturelles entre l'Orient et l'Occident: il évoque les évènements religieux comme Noël et le Ramadan, la question de la religion d'une façon générale (aussi bien musulmane que chrétienne) et le contexte de sa circoncision [2 ]. Dans le deuxième tome, il raconte particulièrement les conditions de sa vie d'écolier dans son village rural syrien Ter Maaleh avec le déroulement des cours, les relations entre les enfants, la place de la religion et de la politique dans le système scolaire ainsi que la pression scolaire exercée par son père. Jean-Pierre Filiu, « L'Arabe du futur: Riad Sattouf raconte la Syrie et la Libye de son enfance», Rue89, 29 mai 2014 ( lire en ligne)
Riad’s drawing skill is such that one can envision the environment quite clearly. It is better than a photograph since Riad can add the elements he wishes to emphasize. In the New York Times review of this title, as well as that in the New Yorker magazine, called "Drawing Blood", we learn that Riad has a few more installments planned for this series, and I look forward eagerly to other adventures as he grows older. He has a viewpoint that is not all sarcasm. He so far has spared his mother, who comes across as a bewildered alien in a hostile environment. a b et c (en) Adam Shatz, « Drawing Blood», sur The New Yorker, 19 octobre 2015 (consulté le 27 décembre 2016)
The funny thing about autobiographies, even when they're about distant lands and people we don't know much about, is that they're still subjective and personal. You can't write an autobiography that will present the entirety of the world around you objectively. You cannot represent your whole society all by your lonesome. en) Japan Media Arts Festival Archive, « Manga Division | 2020 [23rd]», sur Japan Media Arts Festival Archive (consulté le 27 mai 2021) Riad Sattouf: «Avec L'Arabe du futur 4, je me suis libéré de mon secret de famille»», sur FIGARO, 27 septembre 2018 (consulté le 28 août 2019)
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