Description
WINNER 2022 NSW Premier?s Literary Awards ? BOOK OF THE YEAR
WINNER 2022 NSW Premier?s Literary Award ? MULTICULTURAL NSW AWARD
SHORTLISTED 2022 COMIC ARTS AWARDS OF AUSTRALIA
SHORTLISTED 2022 Eve Pownall non-fiction category CBCA AWARDS
SHORTLISTED 2021 ALIA Notable Australian Graphic Novels List
?An arrestingly powerful use of the graphic novel ? Sensitive, heart-breaking, stippled with dark humour, it?s hard to imagine a more potent indictment of Australia?s immigration detention, nor a clearer call to change it.? Cameron Woodhead, the Age ?Pick of the Week?, April 17, 2021
In early 2011, Safdar Ahmed visited Sydney?s Villawood Immigration Detention Centre for the first time. He brought pencils and sketchbooks into the centre and started drawing with the people detained there. Their stories are told in this book.
Interweaving journalism, history and autobiography, Still Alive is an intensely personal indictment of Australia?s refugee detention policies and procedures. It is also a searching reflection on the redemptive power of art. And death metal.
Safdar Ahmed won a Walkley Award in 2015 for his web comic Villawood: Notes from an immigration detention centre.
?I want you to know how profound an experience this graphic novel offers its readers. Read it, feel it as deeply as the content demands ? and then share it with anyone who still needs convincing that immigration detention must end.? Ele Jenkins, Readings Carlton
?Still Alive exemplifies the graphic novel?s capacity for juxtaposition as resistance. His intricately layered pages demonstrate the effect of government policies on real people.? Eloise Grills, The Saturday Paper, April 10, 2021
Those seeking asylum in Australia due to war, strife and violence in their home countries face extraordinary challenges both during their journey and upon arrival. Ahmed?s book focuses on people who arrive in Australia by boat. For these people, a long, perilous journey ends with the often equally perilous obstacles they face when dealing with Australia?s legal processes, with the privations of onshore and offshore detention centres, and with inadequate health and psychological support.
Still Alive also includes the author?s own self-reflective thoughts on the ethics of telling other people?s stories, the aesthetics of comics and heavy metal, and the way art can be used for catharsis, healing and redemption after trauma.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.