Freedom Hospital
A Syrian Story
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
‘With the intimacy of a person who has lived the tragedy himself but with the restraint of a true artist, Hamid Sulaiman tells a powerful tale of Syria’s descent into cataclysm while reminding us of those still tending the seeds of the revolutionary spring.’
Joe Sacco
Winner of the 2017 PEN Translates Award
Winner of the 2017 Burgess Grant
It is spring 2012 and 40,000 people have died since the start of the Syrian Arab Spring. In the wake of this, Yasmin has set up a clandestine hospital in the north of the country. The town that she lives in is controlled by Assad’s brutal regime, but is relatively stable. However, as the months pass, the situation becomes increasingly complex and violent. Told in stark, beautiful black-and-white imagery, Freedom Hospital illuminates a complicated situation with gut-wrenching detail and very dark humour.
The story of Syria is one of the most devastating narratives of our age and Freedom Hospital is an important and timely book from a new international talent.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This ambitious but flawed graphic novel, by an author who escaped war-torn Syria, portrays how a group of physicians, patients, and their friends keep an underground hospital running, evading the Assad-backed army. Resourceful young Yasmin runs the hospital after she and Sophie, a documentary filmmaker, are shuttled past the militarized Turkish border to undertake their mission. Romance subplots blossom, between Yasmin and charismatic doctor Fawaz, as well as between army deserter Haval, who assists at the hospital, with Zahabiah, who comes from a conservative family. After a bombing, former patients rise to new roles in the revolution, like taxi driver Walid, who assumes for himself the title of prince and gains followers, including Salem, who suffers from mysterious memory loss, but takes up arms to follow this new leader. The daily death toll is an expository device used to haunting effect, but other facts are redundant, like defining in a text box the Russian origin of each weapon supplied to the army. The apparent heavy reliance on photo and video reference in drawing scenes leads to an awkward art style, and characters move stiffly, with masklike expressions. A clumsy sense of composition throughout gives the work an unrooted sense of place, unfortunate for a story about very concrete devastation.
