Cairo friendship amid chaos
September 07th, 2017
Coleman Nye, as an assistant professor of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at SFU, has co-authored an unusual graphic novel, Lissa: A Story about Medical Promise, Friendship, and Revolution (UTP $24.95). Co-written with University of California associate professor Sherine Hamdy, it’s unusual because it’s the first book in the University of Toronto Press ethnoGRAPHIC series that explores ethnographic research in graphic novel form–not the sort of thing academic presses are known to do.
With art by Sarula Bao and Caroline Brewer, this fictional story incorporates anthropological research in a comic book format to foster greater understanding of global politics, inequalities, and social life. It conveys an unforeseen friendship between two young women in Cairo; one is dealing with kidney failure and organ transplantation in Egypt, and the other is concerned with breast cancer genetics and prevention in the US. Anna is the daughter of an American couple working in Cairo. Layla is the daughter of the doorman in Anna’s apartment building. While their family problems cannot be ignored, there is revolutionary unrest in the streets. 978-1-4875-9347-6
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