Erdoğan
A Graphic Biography: The Rise of Turkey's Modern Autocrat
**Winner, 2022 Atomium Comic Strip Prize**
A comprehensive graphic biography of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the authoritarian president of Turkey.
One of the world’s most divisive and controversial leaders, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has ruled over Turkey as either prime minister or president since 2003. This graphic biography sheds light on the origins of Turkey’s most powerful man, from his youth as a budding soccer player to his years spent navigating Turkey’s political landscape, including the founding of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in 2001. Author Can Dündar, a Turkish journalist and contributor to the Washington Post now living in exile in Berlin, spent several years researching this book. In 2015 he was arrested when his newspaper published photos of Turkey's state intelligence sending weapons to ISIS in Syria; in 2020 he was sentenced in absentia by Turkish courts to 27 years in prison for espionage and aiding an armed terrorist organization.
Situated at the crossroads between Europe and Asia with a population of 84 million, Turkey is a growing economic powerhouse with a geopolitically strategic location. As its leader, the Islamic, conservative Erdoğan has had a polarizing effect on the country’s populace; some applaud his economic and political reforms, while others decry his autocratic, iron-fisted rule which has included the jailing of opponents, the crushing of free speech and the rights of LGBTQ+ people and others, and an ongoing war waged against the country’s Kurdish minority.
Featuring compelling illustrations by Egyptian-Sudanese comic artist Anwar, this book provides a critical and dramatic context for understanding Erdoğan’s convictions and contradictions as a demagogue for whom democracy has been merely a means to power.
'Can Dündar is a very courageous journalist.' — Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature
'Can Dündar belongs to that elite of extraordinarily brave journalists who risk everything so the world can know the truth. His voice honours a great country in peril.' — Jennifer Clement, former president of PEN International
Can Dündar is a Turkish journalist and documentary filmmaker and the former editor-in-chief of the Istanbul newspaper Cumhuriyet. He was arrested and imprisoned in 2015 on terrorism and espionage charges and in 2020 was sentenced in absentia to twenty-seven years in prison. One of the most prominent figures in Turkish media, Dündar is the 2016 recipient of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ International Press Freedom Award in the US. He has been living in exile in Berlin since June 2016.
Anwar is an Egyptian-Sudanese comic artist and political cartoonist. He was among the new wave of young political cartoonists who emerged in Egypt in the final years of former dictator Hosni Mubarak. The Egyptian revolution that broke out in 2011 was central to Anwar's development as an artist. His work defends the values of social justice, freedom of expression, and equality in Egyptian society; as a result, his cartoons have attracted international attention. After the retraction of political reforms in Egypt in 2011, Anwar was arrested in 2019 and deported. He now lives in Berlin.
L.L. Kreider hails from a village in the U.S.A. but has lived in other parts of the globe for over two decades. She continues to hone her translation skills, wherever in the world she may be.
