about the book
Before delving into this story, let’s talk about the art. If you are looking for the standard panels found in comics, you’ll be disappointed. These simple, sparsely colored, doodled characters move across stark white backgrounds. Other pages feature mixed-media collaged items and throughout, a funny little bird flits by, offering wisecracking comments.
This autobiography is told from the child’s quirky point of view, a collection of memories that are, at times, naive and filled with strange perceptions. It is set in the early 1980s in the city of İzmir, along Turkey’s Aegean Coast. Here and there, hints of current events and historical dynamics crops up. A recent coup has left Turkey under a military dictatorship. There are political and cultural upheavals, prejudice and ethnic issues, western values and confrontations with devout conservative Muslims, a fiercely competitive and biased educational system, and family rivalries that will keep the readers turning pages.
It begins with a tantrum. Four-year old Özge Samanci wants to go to the nearby school where her older sister Pelin attends. Her parents are middle class teachers, and her strict dad orders her to immediately stop her squealing. Özge is sent off on an errand to the grocers. Instead, she slips into her sister’s school and slides into the seat next to Pelin! Her stubbornness and lack of obedience greatly disappoints her father!
Özge grows up being a sharp observer of her world, dreaming of becoming an adventurer, maybe even a scuba diver like Jacques Cousteau. But her dad has definite plans for her. He insists that she excel at school, especially math, and go on to Istanbul’s prestigious Bosporus University to study engineering just like Pelin.
Year after year, she tries her best to keep up with her more academically talented sister, meet her father’s demanding expectations, and cope with the grueling educational system’s requirements. The Gülen movement gives scholarships to the more religiously conservative students, and Özge is ostracized because her family is not religious. She finds living under the strict political and religious rules overwhelming. It all leaves her with a crushing sense of inadequacy. Again and again, she fails miserably.
You’ll be inspired by Ozge’s struggles and eventual success in her graphic autobiography.
about the author/illustrator
Özge Samanci’s childhood was tough. She was constantly compared to her talented older sister. Never being able to please her father left her feeling crushingly inadequate. And she lived in a culture that denigrated women and enforced harsh religious rules. Despite all this, Özge blossomed as a gifted storyteller, comic writer and illustrator, interactive digital installation artist, and assistant college professor. She teaches at Northwestern University.
Özge was born and grew up in İzmir, Turkey, and now calls Chicago home. Dare to Disappoint, her autobiography, was born out her dislike of buying presents. Fifteen years ago, she doodled a notebook full of anecdotes about her childhood for a birthday present for a friend. It was passed around, photocopied, and enjoyed by many. She decided she wanted to capture more memories in an autobiography, done in graphic novel format. After moving to the states, she started a web comic, Ordinary Things. For ten years, she lugged the autobiography idea along with her other projects—like dragging around a heavy suitcase.
Why did it take so long? Though some events in her life were violent or sad, it wasn’t those memories that caused her to hesitate. Özge likes remembering. With the passage of time, she recalls even her worst memories with humor and wisdom. The challenge was making U.S. residents understand life in Turkey—the biased and dysfunctional education system, the role of the military in Turkey, the impact of the coup on the average Turk, the many key figures, and the complex Turkish culture. More importantly, Özge had to be considerate of the feelings of her family and friends. In all, it took her five years to write and draw the book!
Now she’s working on a second graphic novel. This one will be part autobiographical and part fictional…she just hopes it will take less than five years to get done!
Sources:
Author interview: Hurriyet Daily News
Author interview: Kirkus
Author interview: Georgia Tech
Book trailer: Dare to Disappoint
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