Fans are impatient and booksellers no longer count the orders: volume 5 of "The Arab of the future", the autobiographical comic book by Riad Sattouf, available this Thursday, is already shaping up to be a tremendous success, in line with previous ones.
Since the first publication in 2014, the graphic novel has sold 2 million copies, to which must be added a million sales in its 22 translations abroad.
The editorial phenomenon is coupled with critical success: “Fauve d'or” in Angoulême in 2015, it also collects international awards.
Failing to be able to organize a conference in the cinemas, Riad Sattouf will be live on social networks this Wednesday evening at 9 p.m.
The event will last 45 minutes, to be followed on the author and Allary Editions' YouTube, Faceboook and Instagram accounts.
Plate taken from volume 5 of "The Arab of the future".
/ Riad Sattouf / Allary Editions
However, this tremendous success was not expected, as its editor Guillaume Allary confides.
“Riad already had an audience but his comics sold honestly, at a maximum of 30,000 copies.
We were hoping for 35,000 at best for the first volume of
the Arab of the Future
.
We are now at 650,000!
" Why such an interest ?
We have tried to decipher the reasons for this, even if, as Guillaume Allary underlines, there is "a part of the inexplicable" there.
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A universal story…
"The Arab of the future" tells the story of the eventful youth of Riad Sattouf, between Syria and Brittany.
“Everything is up to a child: fears, sorrows, joys… Everyone rediscovers the feelings of their own childhood,” says Guillaume Allary.
Separation of parents, relationship with siblings, memories of Brittany, everyone can appropriate a little of the author's memories… Universal, “the Arab of the future” is also so because he wants to be accessible to all.
“I wanted to make an album that isn't just for comic book readers.
Something easy to read.
While writing it, I was thinking of my Breton grandmother, ”claims Riad Sattouf.
… But a singular story.
A good part of Riad Sattouf's youth takes place in a small village in Syria, that of his father.
“It's also a travelogue.
I think that there was a curiosity on the part of readers to discover from the inside a culture that is ultimately little known, ”suggests Guillaume Allary.
Could the global geopolitical context also play a role of attraction?
" I do not know.
I first tell a personal story, without giving a point of view.
I do not know Syria apart from this small village… On the other hand, I know that many readers have found themselves in the evocation of this double culture ”, testifies the author.
"We were hoping for 35,000 at best for the first volume of the Arab of the Future," slips its publisher, Guillaume Allary.
We are now at 650,000!
»/ Riad Sattouf / Allary Editions
An audience aged 12 to 77 (and over).
“The Arab of the future” has succeeded in reaching several generations.
“It happened gradually,” says Riad Sattouf.
At the start, I had more of an adult audience.
Then more and more, I saw teenagers appear at signings.
Often it was their parents who advised them.
»An audience that is far from being limited to BD readers.
“We conceived it as a real work of general literature.
We realize that the readers are very much rather novels amateurs ”, specifies Guillaume Allary.
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A great talent for storytelling.
Riad Sattouf took ten years to give birth to the first volume of this very personal story.
“Riad Sattouf is a great narrator, with tremendous precision and sensitivity,” believes Benoît Peeters, writer and screenwriter, specialist in comics.
It is no coincidence that he expresses his admiration for Hergé: he is little in this line.
It's very fluid, even graphically.
He knew how to find the right distance: it is a story without hatred, which does not trap its reader.
It reads like watching a great series on Netflix.
"
Extract from volume 5./Riad Sattouf / Allary Editions
Grandparents, parents, teenagers ... all won over
Battista, 18, Parisian student: “It reminded me of my holidays in Brittany.
"
" I started reading it two years ago, on the advice of my parents' friends.
It's very different from the comics I had read before.
The fact that it is seen through the eyes of a child, it softens the point.
Me, it reminded me of my holidays in Brittany when I was little.
There are harsh scenes sometimes but it is justified and it shows the sincerity of the story.
And the drawings, quite simple, fit very well with the story.
I can't wait to read volume 5. ”
Victoire, 34, Parisian manager: “I'm like a TV series.
"
" I discovered it thanks to the advice of a bookseller.
I immediately hooked.
The fact of crunching this story at the height of a child allows you to quickly become attached to the characters.
I also like the simplicity of the line and this way of telling the big story through the small one.
But this is not a geopolitical treatise: for me, it speaks more of childhood and uprooting.
It's like a TV series and I can't wait to pick up my click and collect tome from my bookstore.
"
Delphine, 49, nurse from Lyon, 3 grown children aged 17 to 25: “It's the family comic strip.
"
" It's really the family comic, we talk about it a lot between us, we are all excited when a new album comes out.
For volume 4, my husband sulked because he was the last to read it.
Above all, it allowed us to calmly approach the situation in the Middle East because we do not all have the same outlook on what is happening in this region.
My youngest son was 11 when book 1 came out and what he loved was the adventure side of which the hero is a child.
Today, he is more sensitive to the testimonies and historical aspects.
"
Volume 5: on the roller coaster of adolescence
“My name is Riad.
In 1992, I was 14 years old and I was not terrible.
As usual, Riad Sattouf begins volume 5 of his long-term autobiography with a short physical description.
A clever way to set the scene: the little Riad has become a teenager, "stooped because fearful" and "who smells of sweat" ...
In Rennes, where he lives with his mother, he will experience all the pangs of this ungrateful period: the jokes about his name, the feeling of being alone in the world, the shame in front of "the dominant of the college", the first blow of heart for a girl ... But if there was only that.
Riad also has to face its ghosts.
Those of his years spent in Syria.
That especially of his younger brother, kidnapped by his father, who haunts his thoughts and ruins all hope of a normal family life.
From "The Secret Life of Young People" and his film "Les Beaux Gosses", via "Les Cahiers d'Esther", we know that Riad Sattouf knows how to speak like no one about adolescence.
His was less enviable than others.
And yet, in the midst of the dramas, big and small, which tie the story together, there is always the distance necessary to find a smile.
Ups, downs, like in those roller coasters adored by teens ...
EDITOR'S RATING: 4/5