I usually post information on comic books that a pure entertainment and fun escapism. Comic books that you enjoy on a lazy Saturday afternoon alone or with best Bud. Today, is not usual and the graphic novel Sarai is far from fun and escapism comic. No, Sarai is an in your face, eye opening, gut wrenching look at the terror of some young women and Nigeria forced into slavery.
Below is the official description and a special note from the author of Sarai, Sonica Ellis.
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Description:
Sarai by Sonica Ellis and Jeffrey Lewis"I want to kill them. I want to kill them all."
Sarai is a 12-year-old Nigerian girl whose modest village life is shattered when she is captured by the Ken Jou Plek (Afrikaans for "Know Your Place"), an extremist organization dedicated to the idea that women and girls should be kept down. Like all extremists, the KJP are prepared to realize this vision through torture, slavery, and bloodshed. Certain she is going to die, Sarai makes a bargain with an unusual ally in an attempt to save her life and the lives of her fellow captives.
Tragedy, trauma, man's seemingly limitless capacity for cruelty, the frailty of human existence, justice, and retribution are all laid bare in this cutting-edge graphic novel.
Note from the Author
"I can still remember the exact moment the idea came to me. It was April 14, 2014 and I was sitting in front of the TV, frantically trying to get my taxes done so they would be postmarked April 15th, when I heard the CNN anchor say "...as many as 200 girls were abducted from their boarding school in northeastern Nigeria by heavily armed Boko Haram Islamists who arrived in trucks, vans, and buses, officials and witnesses said." Having a young daughter myself I immediately set aside my W-2s and 1040. In the days that followed, I could think of little else. How terrified those poor girls must be. What horrible abuse might they be experiencing at the hands of these savages? Was there anything anyone could do to save them? To cope with this terrible tragedy my mind began to think what it might be like if one of the girls had the power to fight back, to save her fellow classmates, and to exact righteous vengeance on their captors. Hence Sarai was born."
