Nylon Road: A Graphic Novel

After leaving Iran and moving to Europe in 2004, Parsua Bashi (*1966 Tehran) decided to draw and write a comic book to deal with the turn of events that led to her emigration—among others the divorce from her Iranian husband, and the denial of any contact to her daughter issued by the court, the ostracism she faced as a young divorced woman—in addition to the shock, astonishment, and delight she experienced discovering life in the West.Bashi articulates through cartoon graphics confrontations with her multiple selves as intellectual adversaries or emotional as an optimistic six-year old girl; as a proud, emancipated, and successful Persian designer; or as a grieving mother defeated by a patriarchal society, its courts, and Iranian Shiite law. Through flashbacks she shares a glimpse of life in Iran and, in spite of everything, her pride in and identification with her country.Chapters on immigration and language, home-sickness, fashion, politics, etiquette and luxury, Persian pride (and arrogance) and education, and thoughts about the relationships between men and women address the incongruities of Bashi’s upbringing with the rationale of daily life in the West within this autobiographical graphic novel.This novel is a collection of stories about life in Iran; as a student, during wartime… and as counterpart to the author’s new life in Switzerland, recounting how she found creative inspiration, and many dialogues with one of her former selves