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Mongrel
Towards the end of 2017 Sayra Begum sent Knockabout a sample of her autobiographical graphic novel, Mongrel. This work was the best unsolicited manuscript they have seen for a very long time. It is rare for a new talent to produce such an ambitious long work.
Sayra is both an accomplished and clever storyteller and an original artist in her layouts and drawing style. The story itself covers matters that are at the heart of our society's current concerns; immigration, racism, mixed heritage relationships and inter-generational strife.
Sayra is both an accomplished and clever storyteller and an original artist in her layouts and drawing style. The story itself covers matters that are at the heart of our society's current concerns; immigration, racism, mixed heritage relationships and inter-generational strife.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
264 pages, Paperback
Published August 20, 2020
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33 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 17, 2023
Une première BD assez réussie aux dessins gris, déformés et presque violents, qui arrivent à être ainsi extrêmement expressifs. C'est une histoire de métissage, de mélange de cultures. La protagoniste nous raconte l'histoire sa mère, originaire du Bangladesh, et de son mariage avec un homme blanc, anglais, qui se convertit à l'Islam. C'est aussi son histoire à elle, la vie d'une métisse en Angleterre, d'une fille divisée entre deux cultures et qui est contrainte à porter un masque à chaque fois qu'elle entre chez ses parents. Mais c'est aussi l'histoire d'un conflit intérieur entre son envie de vivre une vie "de blanche" et son sens de culpabilité par rapport à sa religion.
Je recommande cette BD même si je l'ai trouvé parfois un peu trop étouffante et sombre. Elle nous raconte quand même une histoire qu'il vaut le coup de connaître.
Merci à Netgalley et aux éditions Delcourt pour m'avoir permis de la découvrir.
Je recommande cette BD même si je l'ai trouvé parfois un peu trop étouffante et sombre. Elle nous raconte quand même une histoire qu'il vaut le coup de connaître.
Merci à Netgalley et aux éditions Delcourt pour m'avoir permis de la découvrir.
February 28, 2023
el formato,, el estilo,,,,, chulisimos
September 23, 2022
Love Sayra Begum's unique and captivating art style. Certainly enjoyed the story immensely. Am I glad to have stumbled upon this gem of a book at my local library!
July 29, 2025
I found this graphic novel pretty dark reading even though the author, by the end of it, seems to have ‘come through’ darknesses caused by her Bangla-British status.
The novel opens with the narrator – Shuna - on her marriage day. All we know is that her (English) father will not be giving her away because her mother (Bangladeshi) will divorce him if he does. Then the bulk of the narrative concerns itself with her family history and ‘suffocating’ upbringing under her mother’s strict Muslim rulings. It took me a while to realise that this was happening mostly not in Bangladesh but in Britain.
All the same, the influence of Bangladesh and Islam penetrates the narrator’s life and story. Although both her parents are Muslim – her father converted as a young man – it is her mother who rules the roost and is governed by the cultural traditions of her birthland. Her children – two sons and a daughter – must be obedient, study the Quran, pray as required, work hard and show respect for their elders and always bear in mind their responsibility in ensuring the family’s respectability and reputation in the Muslim community’s eyes both in the UK and in Bangladesh. For Shuna and her brothers, who are not 100% Bangla and who live in a British world, this is not an easy ask – well, demand-cum-imposition. No wonder her elder brother Aadam, making his own choices about his future, is disowned by his parents. Eventually, Shuna, too, suffers the same fate.
Neither Aadam not Shuna want their parents to disown them, but their mother in particular is uncompromising in her conviction that their souls are in jeopardy and that it is her responsibility to hold them to the norms of the world she comes from. However – and this is one of the novel’s strengths – we are not unsympathetic to Shuna’s parents. Nor is Shuna. Her narrative is carefully designed to impart enough casual information along the way that helps the reader understand that she understands them.
Her father’s upbringing was an unstable one. There are mentions of parental drunkenness, for example. His teenage life was chaotic and he converted to Islam because it gave his life shape, order, control, purpose. At heart, he is a softie and loves his children, but it is certainly his wife who wears the trousers in the family. And yet she is - as the non-Muslim reader such as myself would see it – burdened by her cultural baggage in a secular society where the cultural norms are different. Her children live in one world outside the house and are required to live in a different one inside it, the one their mother understands.
But, like her husband, I surmise, her stable Bangladeshi world is rocked by her transplantation to Britain. Her English is poor and consequently she is relatively isolated so that the Islamic world she insists on at home is her form of stabilising force. Moreover, she and her husband are putting money into building what is referred to as a mansion for their children back in Bangladesh. She is fulfilling her role as a good mother, and is distraught when her Muslim friends in Britain and in Bangladesh snigger behind her back at what are accounted her failures as a parent.
Shuna knows her mother suffers dreadfully from a sense of being an inadequate parent. She knows also that her mother used to be an excellent archer, but has, since coming to England, had to give up the sport that gave her a sense of self-esteem and self-respect. There is a telling moment when Shuna recounts her mother’s delight when she is offered a cleaner’s job as her English has improved enough, even though it is something of a poor replacement for the status that archery gave her. Nevertheless, however understanding Shuna is of her mother the fact remains that she has to live within a straightjacket of parental control and to endure her mother’s martyrial manipulation, and this does not result in her happiness. For that she needs the man who has asked her to marry her, a white atheist Englishman. It came to me a little while after finishing the novel that in this respect Shuna is a successor to Elizabeth Bennet’s defiance of Lady Catherine de Burgh’s requiring her to give up any interest she may have in Mr Darcy. Elizabeth’s consequent explosive declaration of independence is based on what will promote her personal happiness:
“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
“…You refuse then to oblige me. Your refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. …”
“Neither duty nor honour nor gratitude…have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either, would be violated by my marriage with Mr Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment’s concern – and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.”
Well, Shuna’s resolve is not exactly the same as Elizabeth’s: although intended to promote her personal happiness, it is too tainted by her parents feeling obliged to disown her, and thus, I felt, the resolute absence of colour from the drawings even at the end of the novel which concludes with Shuna’s wedding. But it is a strong ending, the more so for the nightmarish and, I found, sometimes deeply distressing, quality of the story and Sayra Begum’s dynamic illustrative style.
Well worth reading and pondering, but not, I would hope, to be taken as a novel reflecting the experiences of all such mixed race children.
The novel opens with the narrator – Shuna - on her marriage day. All we know is that her (English) father will not be giving her away because her mother (Bangladeshi) will divorce him if he does. Then the bulk of the narrative concerns itself with her family history and ‘suffocating’ upbringing under her mother’s strict Muslim rulings. It took me a while to realise that this was happening mostly not in Bangladesh but in Britain.
All the same, the influence of Bangladesh and Islam penetrates the narrator’s life and story. Although both her parents are Muslim – her father converted as a young man – it is her mother who rules the roost and is governed by the cultural traditions of her birthland. Her children – two sons and a daughter – must be obedient, study the Quran, pray as required, work hard and show respect for their elders and always bear in mind their responsibility in ensuring the family’s respectability and reputation in the Muslim community’s eyes both in the UK and in Bangladesh. For Shuna and her brothers, who are not 100% Bangla and who live in a British world, this is not an easy ask – well, demand-cum-imposition. No wonder her elder brother Aadam, making his own choices about his future, is disowned by his parents. Eventually, Shuna, too, suffers the same fate.
Neither Aadam not Shuna want their parents to disown them, but their mother in particular is uncompromising in her conviction that their souls are in jeopardy and that it is her responsibility to hold them to the norms of the world she comes from. However – and this is one of the novel’s strengths – we are not unsympathetic to Shuna’s parents. Nor is Shuna. Her narrative is carefully designed to impart enough casual information along the way that helps the reader understand that she understands them.
Her father’s upbringing was an unstable one. There are mentions of parental drunkenness, for example. His teenage life was chaotic and he converted to Islam because it gave his life shape, order, control, purpose. At heart, he is a softie and loves his children, but it is certainly his wife who wears the trousers in the family. And yet she is - as the non-Muslim reader such as myself would see it – burdened by her cultural baggage in a secular society where the cultural norms are different. Her children live in one world outside the house and are required to live in a different one inside it, the one their mother understands.
But, like her husband, I surmise, her stable Bangladeshi world is rocked by her transplantation to Britain. Her English is poor and consequently she is relatively isolated so that the Islamic world she insists on at home is her form of stabilising force. Moreover, she and her husband are putting money into building what is referred to as a mansion for their children back in Bangladesh. She is fulfilling her role as a good mother, and is distraught when her Muslim friends in Britain and in Bangladesh snigger behind her back at what are accounted her failures as a parent.
Shuna knows her mother suffers dreadfully from a sense of being an inadequate parent. She knows also that her mother used to be an excellent archer, but has, since coming to England, had to give up the sport that gave her a sense of self-esteem and self-respect. There is a telling moment when Shuna recounts her mother’s delight when she is offered a cleaner’s job as her English has improved enough, even though it is something of a poor replacement for the status that archery gave her. Nevertheless, however understanding Shuna is of her mother the fact remains that she has to live within a straightjacket of parental control and to endure her mother’s martyrial manipulation, and this does not result in her happiness. For that she needs the man who has asked her to marry her, a white atheist Englishman. It came to me a little while after finishing the novel that in this respect Shuna is a successor to Elizabeth Bennet’s defiance of Lady Catherine de Burgh’s requiring her to give up any interest she may have in Mr Darcy. Elizabeth’s consequent explosive declaration of independence is based on what will promote her personal happiness:
“I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.”
“…You refuse then to oblige me. Your refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. …”
“Neither duty nor honour nor gratitude…have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either, would be violated by my marriage with Mr Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment’s concern – and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.”
Well, Shuna’s resolve is not exactly the same as Elizabeth’s: although intended to promote her personal happiness, it is too tainted by her parents feeling obliged to disown her, and thus, I felt, the resolute absence of colour from the drawings even at the end of the novel which concludes with Shuna’s wedding. But it is a strong ending, the more so for the nightmarish and, I found, sometimes deeply distressing, quality of the story and Sayra Begum’s dynamic illustrative style.
Well worth reading and pondering, but not, I would hope, to be taken as a novel reflecting the experiences of all such mixed race children.
March 13, 2022
I had high hopes for this book even though I randomly stumbled upon it at a comic book store. The plot and the fact that the author is Bangladeshi really appealed to me, but I don't think it really said anything. The illustrations were cool and unique, but I didn't get anything of value and nothing from this book has stuck with me in the time following.
May 16, 2023
Joli album qui résonnera fort probablement avec tous ceux et celles qui sont écartelé.e.s entre plusieurs cultures.
August 8, 2024
Ergens op het internet kwam ik een bladzijde uit deze graphic novel tegen en was ik direct geïntrigeerd door de tekenstijl ervan, wat een geluk dat ik een tweedehandsexemplaar vond. Een autobiografisch werk over het gevangen zitten tussen werelden. Een tweede generatie moslim te zijn, heen en weer bewegen tussen de tradities thuis, maar ook studeren aan een Britse universiteit en zelfs verliefd worden op en trouwen met een Britse jongen.
Waar voel je je geborgen en waar wrikt het en kom je terecht in innerlijke en werkelijke conflicten? Het is complex en ook al is het voor iedereen anders, denk ik dat iedereen die te maken heeft met het maken van eigen keuzes die niet overeenkomen met thuis zich hierin kan herkennen.
Erg mooi tekenwerk in een geheel eigen stijl met invloeden uit Islamitische miniaturen en het surrealisme. Opnieuw een kunstwerk binnen het genre, met een inkijkje om mijn enthousiasme te delen. Klik hier
Waar voel je je geborgen en waar wrikt het en kom je terecht in innerlijke en werkelijke conflicten? Het is complex en ook al is het voor iedereen anders, denk ik dat iedereen die te maken heeft met het maken van eigen keuzes die niet overeenkomen met thuis zich hierin kan herkennen.
Erg mooi tekenwerk in een geheel eigen stijl met invloeden uit Islamitische miniaturen en het surrealisme. Opnieuw een kunstwerk binnen het genre, met een inkijkje om mijn enthousiasme te delen. Klik hier
June 17, 2024
3.5 Stars
Mongrel is about the author, Sayra Begum, a child from an arranged marriage between a white, Islamic-convert English father and a traditional Muslim Bangladeshi woman. Coincidentally perhaps, Sayra (known in her book as Shuna) also wishes to marry a white man, though this time for love to a non-Muslim (atheist). She is also no longer sure she believes in Islam and religion at all. Shuna's struggles with her oppressive, religious mother, who fears an eternity in hell for her daughter, dominate the story, which is entertaining and interesting, if muddled at times. It is a window into a world I know little about, albeit told with typos and an art style I’m not particularly fond of, creative use of flowing script aside.
August 11, 2023
'Mongrel' is a gorgeously illustrated autobiographical story, and a window into the life of a Bangla-British Muslim family.
The front door of Shuna’s family home acted as a gateway to Bangladesh. Nothing haram passed through this door, this was a devout house. When Shuna walked through this door, she switched her rebellious face to her pious face, which eagerly absorbed the teaching of the Prophet, striving to be a good Muslim girl. The switching between these two faces became increasingly difficult as they grew further and further apart.
‘Yes, yes, yes I’ll marry you!’ I said to David. Although, after the celestial shock wore off and dull reality set in, I realised there was a slight problem. I would have to tell my very traditional parents that I was going to marry a non-Muslim and confess my secret life. It’s my wedding day. My parents are absent. I’m not surprised. Why would my parents want to celebrate their daughter's eternal damnation in hell fire? (Publisher website blurb)
The cover of 'Mongrel' summarises beautifully the central concept of the book - the two cultures conflicting within the main character Shuna's life, as she marries a non-Muslim.
Sayra's illustrations are inspired by Islamic miniatures and Surrealism, and her fine art background is clear in the 260 plus pages of exquisitely pencilled black and white illustrations, which cover the page in a variety of layouts, not confined just to frames.
The front door of Shuna’s family home acted as a gateway to Bangladesh. Nothing haram passed through this door, this was a devout house. When Shuna walked through this door, she switched her rebellious face to her pious face, which eagerly absorbed the teaching of the Prophet, striving to be a good Muslim girl. The switching between these two faces became increasingly difficult as they grew further and further apart.
‘Yes, yes, yes I’ll marry you!’ I said to David. Although, after the celestial shock wore off and dull reality set in, I realised there was a slight problem. I would have to tell my very traditional parents that I was going to marry a non-Muslim and confess my secret life. It’s my wedding day. My parents are absent. I’m not surprised. Why would my parents want to celebrate their daughter's eternal damnation in hell fire? (Publisher website blurb)
The cover of 'Mongrel' summarises beautifully the central concept of the book - the two cultures conflicting within the main character Shuna's life, as she marries a non-Muslim.
Sayra's illustrations are inspired by Islamic miniatures and Surrealism, and her fine art background is clear in the 260 plus pages of exquisitely pencilled black and white illustrations, which cover the page in a variety of layouts, not confined just to frames.
October 14, 2020
Assured confident debut. Absorbing and beautifully told tale of a young girl torn between too cultures.
Well worth a read.
Well worth a read.
November 14, 2022
I enjoyed reading of another culture. This is the first graphic novel I have ever completed.
October 18, 2020
Such a unique coming of age story, and the illustrations are beautiful.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews