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vonnegutian's review
5.0
This graphic novel of a refugee’s desperate journey to free himself from the corrupt and hopeless existence of his hometown is not based on a true story and surprisingly this makes for a stronger work. I think this is because we don’t need to question the extremity and validity of what he experiences in his escape. As fiction we can instead imagine and know such hardships exist; we are not drawn into a ‘did this really happen?’ ‘is he exaggerating events for effect’ discussion, which might dilute the compassion felt for these people whose lives are such a bleak struggle. Instead, our focus is on what it should be on: namely that somewhere out there, people like Alpha who want to provide for their families find it impossible to do so in their native country and face difficult choices between oppressed status quo’s or perilous quests to the Western world - complete with encounters of extortion, fear, abuse, disease, humiliation, captivity; slim chances of success and often fatal results in failure. Refugees give everything for such a small reward and it is poignantly captured in this short and stylishly illustrated graphic novel.
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