Review by Colin Credle
French creator Fabien Toulmé has crafted a timely, engaging journey with Hakim’s Odyssey Book 1: From Syria to Turkey. We hear firsthand from Toulmé as he explains how he decided to pursue this journey of a refugee and how he found Hakim, which is a pseudonym for reasons that become more apparent as he tells his story of leaving Syria. It’s 2016 when we meet Hakim, his wife and his three year old son Hadi in their apartment in Aix-en-Provence, France. Hakim starts his story in Syria before 2011 where we learn how he took over this father’s plant nursery business with unexpected success. He was able to hire additional employees, even buy himself a car and new apartment. Things were looking up for Hakim.
In 2011, the Arab Spring revolts took hold across the Middle East. Hakim is living in a suburb south of Damascus with his nine siblings when peaceful anti-government demonstrations erupted. We’re given a quick primer on Syrian society, factions and government bureaucracies in a well-illustrated and lucid series of panels. It is striking how content Hakim was with his progress and well-being while at the same time being sober and aware of the challenges of living in Syria. We not only learn about Syria, but we learn about his very individual experience as context. For instance, Hakim tells us that Syrians envisioned Europe from afar as super clean and devoid of any corruption, however France supports Israel, their existential enemy, and we see how tensions between ethnic factions can stonewall you at every turn.
Toulmé gracefully inserts and removes himself from the narrative intermittently and allows Hakim’s voice to fully possess the circuitous journey. Hakim is hard working, resourceful, canny and adept at circumventing ever-constricting, threatening events. What remains with you are small moments of transcendent generosity from unexpected sources. Initially, Hakim ends up in prison in Damascus, where he suspects he was denounced by either family or friends. As the days pile up, he begins to lose hope only to have a customer from his nursery give a bribe to release him. The risk for this generosity, the implications for this anonymous person’s family is hard to fathom, yet similar surprising interventions continue to happen.
Later, Hakim’s younger brother Jawad is arrested attending a demonstration against the ruling dictator. Since Hakim has only just been released from prison, he feels it’s only a matter of time before the Syrian Intelligence come for him again, and his family decides it’s best for Hakim to leave Syria temporarily and wait for a safer time to return. From Syria, to Lebanon, to Jordan to Turkey, despite the obstacles, the corruption and even the violence, Hakim is carried along by unexpected moments of generosity. In Turkey, wary of fellow Syrians that might be informants, he remains vigilant. Even so, he meets his current wife and in an amazing expression of optimism, gets married in Turkey with few prospects and no certainty what will happen next, but we remain hopeful with him.
Toulmé’s illustrations amplify explanations of rather complicated cultural situations in Syria as well as Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. The soft straight line style endears us to Hakim’s humanity and yet still manages to display the malevolence of the Mukhabarat Intelligence Service of Syria. Toulmé sets out to humanize the flow of anonymous refugees flooding into Europe, most of whom are Syrian refugees. He succeeds admirably and hooks us into wanting to know more – Hakim has managed to reach Turkey, but how did he get all the way to France? Hakim’s Odyssey continues in Book 2: From Turkey to Greece.
