Graphic-novel episode by Shira Badakshi

Location: Ioakimion Girls High School

15.11.2024 – 30.11.2024

Soraya Tarzi (1899-1968) was the first queen of Afghanistan as the wife of King Amanullah Khan between 1919-1929 and played a major part in the modernization reforms of her husband, particularly regarding the emancipation of women. She was the first woman ever featured as Person of the Year in Time-magazine in 1927.

The rise and fall of the celebrity-couple narrates multilayered perspectives of Afghanistan before the Taliban and tries to explore the reasons for the reforms failure and which clashes they caused in the country. Cartoonist Shira Badakshi creates an episode in a graphic novel style. The couple is in Paris, touring Europe in 1927. They get lots of attention from Western politicians and the media. Soraya is praised for her exclusive wardrobe and her ideas about women’s emancipation.

The progressive Royals travelled to Turkey May 1928. They were the first official State representatives to visit Ankara, the Capital of the 1923 founded Turkish Republic. They initiated that Afghan young women moved to Turkey to participate in the education System. The reforms they tried to implement caused a conservative backslash, and they went to exile in 1929.

Shira Badakshi is the Pseudonym of an Afghan Cartoonist living in exile. In this work, she travels back to the past to examine the roots of the clashes in Afghanistan. Power fights between ethnic groups and religious fractions and the colonial global politics of the west are the backdrop of a colorful narrated episode in a unique drawing style fusing drawing and painting aesthetics.