Publication Announcement – ‘Al Faẓia’ الفظیع – the Horror: Surviving Syria’s Prisons’ – May 2026
Excerpt from Al-Faẓia’ (University of Toronto Press, 2026) by Tobi Dahmen and Akram Al Saud.
We are delighted to announce that SCVN’s third graphic novel, Al-Faẓia’ الفظیع – The Horror: Surviving Syria’s Prisons, will be published in German on May 26, 2026, by Carlsen Verlag. Al-Faẓia’ is the result of a collaboration between artist Tobi Dahmen and survivor Akram Al Saud, including extensive interviews and personal encounters.
In 2010, Akram Al Saud, then a nineteen-year-old architecture student at the University of Aleppo, was unjustly arrested by the intelligence services of the Syrian air force. His detention, the first of four, lasted nine months. After his release, Akram joined the revolution against the Assad regime, but in 2016 he was forced to flee to Europe.
Akram and Tobi’s collaboration was supported by a team of people dedicated to arts-based, trauma-informed, survivor-centred research and storytelling: editors Uğur Ümit Üngör and Charlotte Schallié; research cluster co-leads Dr. Üngör, Kees Ribbens, and Kjell Anderson; and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam. Funding was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).
For more information about the graphic novel, follow the link to our Research Cluster page. Click the cover image on the right to read an English translation of the official Carlsen press kit, or click on the images below.
A companion documentary short film, ‘How to Draw Darkness?’, directed by Lidija Zelović, is currently in post-production, with the official trailer available to watch on our SCVN YouTube channel.
An English version of Al-Faẓia’ will be published by the University of Toronto Press in November, 2026.
