A Game for Swallows: To Die, to Leave, to Return by Zeina Abirached
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"Mourir partir revenir c'est/ le jeu des hirondelles.
To die to leave to return/ it's a game for swallows. Florian" [graffiti on Beirut wall, page 172]
I found used copies after checking this out of the library and overlooking it too long. I waited unnecessarily; don't make the same mistake: this book is captivating. The graphic simplicity of the cartooning draws the reader into the small differences in the repetition of panels and motifs: eye movements, wall hangings, game pieces, sound effects, and rhetorical flourishes, all in an increasingly small space in the Lebanese Civil War.
Abirached uses comics so well. Don't assume this is just one kind of thing: just for young people, just a memoir, just a family... Like many great works, it's more than the sum of its parts.
Thanks to the publisher, Lerner/ Graphic Universe, for this edition, translated from the French.
Highly recommended.


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