HAKIM'S ODYSSEY: Book 3 From Macedonia to France, a graphic indictment of selfishness and greed

HAKIM'S ODYSSEY: Book 3 From Macedonia to France
FABIEN TOULMÉ (tr. Hannah Chute)
Graphic Mundi/PSU Press
$29.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The end of a journey, the beginning of a new life.

—I’m Syrian, and I got here from Turkey. —Whoaaa! That’s a hell of a trip! —You could say that . . . I left home almost three years ago.

After being rescued from the Mediterranean, Hakim and his son reach European soil, full of hope. But before they can get to France, they face a new series of challenges: overcrowded detention centers, run-ins with border police, and a persistent xenophobia that seems to follow them almost everywhere they go. Will Hakim’s determination and the kindness of strangers be enough to carry him to the end of his journey and reunite his family?

By turns heart-warming and heart-wrenching, this final installment in the Hakim’s Odyssey trilogy follows Hakim and his son as they make their way from Macedonia to the south of France. Based on true events, it lays bare the tremendous effects that the policies of wealthy countries and the attitudes of their people have on the lives of the displaced and dispossessed.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A story I think gets too little attention in the sequential-storytelling community. A fact-based story of the dsperation that drives people to abandon homelands that no longer care to, or possess the means to, support them. The horrors of attempting to escape war. The nightmarish way "host" countries treat the newly arrived, often traumatized, families. It does not reflect well on the societies of the countries who have much and wish to share little.

The author/artist clearly went among the people in this precarious situation of being stateless, being unhoused, unwanted, unloved...

...tolerated until something changes, then shunted off to who-knows-where, it might be better, it might be worse, but it isn't here and that's what makes the "host" country happy...

...even if it means you could contract a fatal disease because you're too much trouble to house.

A shameful example before the world, and a problem that will not go away any time soon. Climate refugees are not long behind the displaced people running from the endless wars around the world.

Thinking it through via a well-done, if heavy-handed, graphic novel absolutely can rev up your giftee's empathy gearbox. It can't hurt to try.