THE DISSIDENT CLUB

Speaking truth to power in a repressive regime.

Siddiqui grew up like many boys around the world—he dreamed of superheroes, played soccer with friends, and took an interest in girls. Not every kid, however, has a father who becomes radicalized in his religious beliefs, a man who throws away his son’s comic books and is incensed upon learning that there are girls in his classroom—both sure signs of Satan’s presence, he says. As for soccer, best not to play it during afternoon prayers, when the Muttawa—the religious police—hunt you down in police cruisers and, if they catch you, beat you with sticks and shave your head to mark you as someone who has broken religious laws. That is, unless you happen to escape by hopping over a wall and hiding in what you learn is the empty compound of none other than Osama bin Laden. Such is Siddiqui’s upbringing in Saudi Arabia as the free-spirited child of Pakistani Muslim parents who moved to the kingdom in the 1980s in search of a better life. Siddiqui chronicles his eventful life story in a fast-paced graphic memoir that jumps from the author’s early years in Jeddah to his journey of becoming a prominent journalist in Pakistan who is critical of the Islamic republic’s oppressive military rule. There’s a lot of heavy subject matter in the book—Siddiqui’s life is threatened, and colleagues are killed—but he can be very funny, as when recounting a youthful infatuation that can’t bode well: “Oh, shit! I’m falling in love with a Shiite!” Or when his ever-critical father shares some news with his wife: “You hear that?” he bellows. “Your son won a TV prize! Shame upon us!” Credit also goes to Maury, a former French military officer whose lively and expressive artwork graces these pages; it’s the artist’s first work published in English.

A Pakistani journalist’s rousing look back at years of strife.