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“Yogurt with Marmalade: Or how my mother became Lebanese”
November 26, 20187:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
7:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
Lebanon’s Lena Mehrej is presenting her graphic novel, published by
Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo, at the Casa Árabe headquarters
in Madrid. She will also be holding a dialogue with graphic novelist
Quan Zhou, author of Sweet-and-sour Gazpacho.
In Lebanon, yogurt has been eaten with salt and grated cucumber (very finely grated) since the beginning of time. One day, Lena Merhej (Beirut, 1977) was stunned when she saw her mother eat yogurt with marmalade. Years later, she sketched this lovely story about her mother, a German woman from Hannover, and created a portrait of the peaceful co-existence of contradictions” that existed in her family and, perhaps to a lesser extent, her country. A closer look at the Arab world through the eyes of a women from old Europe, proving that the East is not so far and also has a memory, nostalgia and open wounds.
Alfonso Zapico, Babelia - El País, April 21, 2018
Lena Merhej (Beirut, 1977), born to a German mother and Lebanese father, completed her studies in Art and Graphic Design. She has given classes in illustration and animation at the Lebanese American University. With more than twenty illustrated albums for children, she formed part of the founding team of Samandal, the first magazine of comics in the Arab world. Her animated film Dessiner la guerre (Drawing War) won the jury’s award at the New York Festival in 2003, and her graphic novels Kamen sine (Another Year) and Yogurt with Marmalade received the award for best comic book at the International Comics Festival of Algiers in 2009 and 2013, respectively. In 2016, she coordinated the monographic issue of Samandal on youth, sexuality and poetry.
Alfonso Zapico, Babelia - El País, April 21, 2018
Lena Merhej (Beirut, 1977), born to a German mother and Lebanese father, completed her studies in Art and Graphic Design. She has given classes in illustration and animation at the Lebanese American University. With more than twenty illustrated albums for children, she formed part of the founding team of Samandal, the first magazine of comics in the Arab world. Her animated film Dessiner la guerre (Drawing War) won the jury’s award at the New York Festival in 2003, and her graphic novels Kamen sine (Another Year) and Yogurt with Marmalade received the award for best comic book at the International Comics Festival of Algiers in 2009 and 2013, respectively. In 2016, she coordinated the monographic issue of Samandal on youth, sexuality and poetry.
