monkeelino 's review for:

After the Spring: A Story of Tunisian Youth by Helene Aldeguer

3.0

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Another library find for me. While I was aware of the Arab Spring in a very general sense, I'm not sure I was actually familiar with the Jasmine Revolution, nor could I easily point out Tunisia on a map (just laying my ignorance cards on the table here). What Aldeguer succeeds in doing here is capturing the disillusion, disenfranchisement, and anger of several individual youth caught up in the political upheaval of Tunisia from 2013 to 2014 where an oppressive government struggles to hold power through violence. The rural population is feeling overlooked and facing deep unemployment. Public demonstrations pop up after various flashpoint events. The youth have little option but to hope education leads to opportunity, to turn to crime, or to leave for Europe (whose response to immigration is disturbingly captured by a scene in which yet another body washes up on Tunisia's shores after a failed attempt to migrate by boat). The artwork is flat and somewhat simple, but had a certain charm to it. Despite the context provided by a dense timeline of political events in the back of the book, it still felt like most readers would be a little lost in the complex social/political/religious dynamics at work.