STILL ALIVE by Safdar Ahmed, published April 2021
Access resources for Still Alive, including interviews, videos and notes for teachers here
WINNER 2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards – BOOK OF THE YEAR
WINNER 2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Award – MULTICULTURAL NSW AWARD
WINNER GOLD LEDGER 2022 COMIC ARTS AWARDS OF AUSTRALIA
WINNER– 2022 CBCA EVE POWNALL AWARD
SHORTLISTED 2021 ALIA Notable Australian Graphic Novels List
PUBLISHED IN FRANCE
SOON TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE USA
‘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’
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.
‘Arresting, forensically detailed and meticulously researched … Buy it for your libraries. Read it and scrutinise your politicians: demand more of them! Changing the world begins with us and the systems we support or reject.’ Katherine England, Magpies Magazine
About the Artist
Safdar Ahmed is a Sydney-based artist, musician and educator. He is a founding member of the community art organisation Refugee Art Project, and member of eleven, a collective of contemporary Muslim Australian artists, curators and writers. Safdar’s art practice focusses on issues of representation and belonging, referencing personal history, graphic storytelling, cultural exegesis and Muslim tradition. He is the author of Reform and Modernity in Islam (IB Tauris, 2013) and the Walkley Award–winning documentary web-comic Villawood: Notes from an immigration detention centre (2015), from which his multi-awarding-winning graphic novel Still Alive evolved. He also sings and plays guitar with the anti-racist death metal band Hazeen.
safdarahmed.com
Publication date: 1 April 2021
ISBN: 978-0-9805937-3-0
Format: Paperback, 240 x 170mm
Extent: 240 pages
Price: AUS $30.00
Rights sold: World English excluding ANZ (Fantagraphics), French (Cambourakis)
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