‘Al-Ali remains a hero in the Arab world, in particular to the Palestinians, who say his name with the same tenderness with which they mention their great poets’ Joe Sacco, from the Introduction
A Child in Palestine collects the work of one of the Arab world’s greatest cartoonists, Naji al-Ali, known as ‘the Palestinian Malcolm X’. Discovered in the 1950s, he was revered throughout the region for his outspokenness, honesty and humanity. Resolutely independent, al-Ali strove to speak to and for the ordinary Arab people. The pointed satire of his stark, symbolic cartoons brought him widespread renown. His most celebrated creation, the child Hanthala, exposed the brutality of Israeli occupation, the venality and corruption of the region’s regimes, and the suffering of the Palestinian people. Hanthala is today seen as a surrogate witness to ongoing horrors and a beacon for Palestinian resistance.
