What is it like to be caught between two cultures, not completely identifying with either and not completely being accepted by either? I’ve met people who are the offspring of mixed-race marriages, but two distinct cultures?
If you’re wonder
ing, too, one insight into a European-Middle Eastern dichotomy is a published series of comic strips entitled The Arab of the Future by Riad Sattouf. Five volumes are planned; the second has just been released.
Riad Sattouf is a former staffer for the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo. His mother is French, his father is Syrian. He was born in Paris in 1978, but has lived in Libya and Syria. He seems caught squarely in the middle, like being called Jewish just because he’s blonde. He is an astute observer who writes with a dark humor and spares no one, especially not his father, a Pan-Arabist who drags his family along as he follows the grandiose dreams of Arab nationalists. The result is a unique insight into life in the Middle East and all the contradictions and superstitions that come along with it.
The photo is from Amazon.com