The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf

YA Historical Fiction

288 Pages

Publisher: Salaam Reads

Publication Date: February 2019

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Synopsis

A music-loving teen with OCD does everything she can to find her way back to her mother during the historic race riots in 1969 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in this heart-pounding literary debut.

Melati Ahmad looks like your typical moviegoing, Beatles-obsessed sixteen-year-old. Unlike most other sixteen-year-olds though, Mel also believes that she harbors a djinn inside her, one who threatens her with horrific images of her mother’s death unless she adheres to an elaborate ritual of counting and tapping to keep him satisfied.

But there are things that Melati can’t protect her mother from. On the evening of May 13th, 1969, racial tensions in her home city of Kuala Lumpur boil over. The Chinese and Malays are at war, and Mel and her mother become separated by a city…

The Algerian publishing house Dalimen Editions is a leading publisher of comix and illustrated works for readers of all ages. Its founder, Dalila Nedjem, talks about the challenges and opportunities of graphic works:

By Nadia Ghanem

Dalimen Editions were founded in Algeria by Dalila Nedjem in 2001. Initially, Dalimen’s focus was arts and cultural heritage, but when Nedjem became the commissioner of Algiers’ International Festival of Comic Books (FIBDA) upon the festival’s launch in 2008, she amended her editorial line to include comic books and graphic novels. To talk about Dalimen’s passion for the illustrated word, Dalila Nedjem has kindly answered a few questions below, to be read along the following frame.

Publishers dedicated to promoting local illustrators and graphic storytellers in Algeria are few. The genre has in fact experienced a bumpy road since the 90s, when celebrated cartoonists like Brahim Guerroui (called Gébé), Mohamed Dorbane, and Saïd Mekbel,