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"Combining sense of guilt and self-pity, the book acutely, and not without derision, reflects the feelings of those who, one day, had to flee their home country and leave their families behind." Le Monde
Mana Neyestani has been a refugee in France since 2011, after having to flee Iran because of a drawing (events he described in his first graphic novel, Une Métamorphose Iranienne) . In Three Hours, he shows how his condition of refugee weighs on him. He feeels condemned not to be able to return to his country where he risks life imprisonment, while not yet feeling at home in France. He was sorely reminded of this condition in 2017, as he was about to fly to Canada to promote his latest graphic novel and visit his brother. Stranded at the airport by the airline, which did not know how to process his refugee travel documents, Mana Neyestani faced a wall of incomprehension.
Three Hours details this long wait during which he can only observe his helplessness and the little attention given to those in his position. It is also an opportunity for this shy man who never dares to raise his voice or defend his interests to indulge in an exercise in self-reflection.
A poignant, sometimes funny and very honest story about a man forced into exile but whose host country still treats him too often as an intruder.
17x24cm, softcover with flaps
128 pages
b&w and colors
Mana Neyestani was born in Tehran in 1973. He graduated as an architect but began his career in 1990 as a cartoonist and illustrator for many cultural, literary, economic and political magazines. With the rise of Iranian reformist newspapers in 1999 he became an editorial cartoonist.
Sidelined as a political cartoonist, Neyestani was forced to do children’s cartoons. One he did in 2006 led to his imprisonment and flight from the country. From 2007 to 2010 he lived in exile in Malaysia, doing cartoons for dissident Iranian websites worldwide. In the wake of the fraudulent election of 2009, his work has become an icon of defiance to the Iranian people. Neyestani has won numerous Iranian and international awards, most recently the 2010 CRNI Award for Courage. Since 2011, he lives in Paris, France with his wife. They are both refugees.
