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Cune Press announces the publication of Ali Farzat's A Pen of Damascus Steel: Political Cartoons of an Arab Master.

Ali Farzat is the dean of Arab political cartoonists. His caricatures do not spare wealth, influence, or power. They give hope to the disenfranchised, the poor, and the hungry. Farzat is an authentic Arab voice who nevertheless does not hesitate to buck the tide of majority opinion. (He has consistently disparaged Saddam Hussein, for example, and lauds the US for adopting his position that Saddam must go.)

His work has appeared for thirty-five years in major Arab daily newspapers as well as in Le Monde and other international publications. Farzat has served as the head of the Society of Arab Cartoonists since 1980 and has won many awards, including the prestigious Prince Claus Award in 2002.

Farzat is Shakespearean in his productivity. He has created more than 15,000 caricatures. He is now in his fifties and lives in Damascus with his wife and family.

Description
[An English / Arabic edition]
[Paperback with French flaps currently available; hardcover available 3/15/05]

[Buy the book]

"The cartoons published in this volume are just a few of the 15,000 that I have created in the last 35 years. Caricatures by definition refer to a surface actuality. Yet the mental space where I conceived and shaped my drawings is more obscure. It is a sub-surface realm that is perplexed, that exists in suspension between joy and grief, laughter and tears.

"My drawings reflect their origins. I devoted my cartoons to contemporary ideals: Freedom, Democracy, Love, and Peace. I pitted them against contemporary evils: Injustice, Repression, Dictatorship, Terrorism, Environmental Degradation, Corruption. Yet my drawings also reflect the sub-surface work space where they took shape. They have come to embody the simple and yet complex ambiguity of their creation."

From the preface to A Pen of Damascus Steel: Political Cartoons of an Arab Master by Ali Farzat.

[more]

Ali Farzat and his political cartoons present a window into the minds and hearts of real Arabs—the fair-minded men and women who compose the vast majority of Middle Eastern people.

Farzat examines the flaws of Arab government and society. He also looks out at a world gone mad—a world where starving children stare into the mouths of cannons. Farzat introduces us to a sympathetic Arab people who are devoted to their families and who admire the Enlightenment ideals of free speech, free assembly, and independent civil society. Farzat's Arabs are sweet, whimsical, and charming by turns—yet they are also befuddled by the impossible choices they face.

Farzat gives voice to the withering skepticism of ordinary folk toward the rich, the powerful—and toward global powers that blunder and turn friends into enemies for no apparent reason. Will the United States succeed at improving life in the Middle East? Or will American rhetoric and actions continue to meet hostility and resistance?

Success or failure will depend on the ability of Americans—citizens and policymakers alike—to overcome anti-Arab stereotypes and to touch real men and women in the Middle East. Peace demands that we understand Arabs and Muslims and learn to see the world through their eyes. For Americans who wish to bring peace to the Middle East, the political cartoons of Ali Farzat are a required text.

This is what the media is saying about Ali Farzat.

• Washington Post, October 31. 2004. ". . Ali Ferzat, a cartoonist who began publishing a popular but short-lived independent newspaper that he says was shuttered by the government. Ferzat still goes to the empty newspaper office. He says, wistfully, there was once a productive chaos in the now-vacant rooms, but not anymore. At least he has his cartoons, which are still seen (and win him awards) around the world." [see the article]
  
  
• Radio Netherlands report, 4 April 2003. "It's noon in downtown Damascus and the traffic does not stop for a handful of demonstrators in Salhiyyah square. . .What is different about this demonstration though, is that it is not aimed at the US and Britain but rather at a popular local cartoonist who has dared to keep criticising Saddam Hussein. . . . The target of the dozen or so protesters is Ali Ferzat, who last year received the Dutch Prince Claus award for his outstanding work as a cartoonist and as the owner of one of Syria's two independent newspapers. He has made a career out of poking fun at the repressive regimes in the region." [see the story]
  
  
• The Times, April 5, 2003. "These are dangerous times for liberal Syrians such as Ali Farzat, finds our correspondent in Damascus." [see the article]
  
  
• New York Times, July 23, 2003. "For years, Mr. Firzat's political cartoons survived despite their merciless - and often hilarious - ridiculing of Syrian officialdom. He managed this by fashioning his cartoons deftly enough to make their point, but obliquely enough to allow him to deny any ill intent. Syrians got the joke. But the Syrian government's tolerance for Mr. Firzat, 51, came to end, as did his newspaper, The Light Holder, when he took up the subject of the American invasion of Iraq." [see the article]

Following are interviews with Ali Farzat.

• Interview by Sabah Hawasli, Damascus-born writer now living in Seattle, April 26, 2005. [English (html)] [English (pdf)] [English/Arabic (pdf) ]
• Interview by Scott C. Davis, author of Road from Damascus, April 5, 2005. [English (html)] [English (pdf)]