Review: Perihan, the girl without a mouth Graphic Novel

Perihan was an eagerly awaited baby. She was her family’s greatest excitement for the future. But when the moment of her birth finally arrived, the marvelous cry that would make their dreams into reality and sweep worries aside never came. From that day on, Perihan was destined for extraordinary growing pains. Finding her voice and expressing herself in her life song would be a truly exceptional journey for her. And lies and rage would guide her life like no other teenager in the world… as well as truth and hope.

Book Information

Length: 88 pages

Published by Europe Comics

(first published March 2018)

Cem Ozuduru (born 1987) is a Turkish comic book artist.

Ozuduru has been writing and drawing professionally since his debut in the monthly comics magazine Rodeo Strip in 2005.

Known to his fans as "the dreamcatcher", Ozuduru has recently finished his first long story in the format of a graphic novel (Zombistan, 2009). The book is notable for being the first authentic graphic novel by such a young comics creator. Normally, Turkish comics creators get pages in weekly humor magazines and some of these works later get collected when the creator has matured. Cem Özüduru was interviewed by Hurriyet as the youngest comics author right after the publication of Zombistan.

The story of Zombistan is set in Istanbul in the present (late 2000s) and is about a group of people who find themselves amidst a large scale zombie invasion. The story actually deals with many issues on Turkey's political agenda through characters who have diverse comments on their primal goal – to survive

Cartoons by Ozuduru appear in the pages of Altyazi, a monthly movie magazine. With texts by Murat Mihcioglu, this illustrated department of the magazine hosts an uncommon form of movie criticism, one that involves mostly humor. (Source: Wikipedia)

Named after the main character of this novel, Perihan is a short Turkish graphic novel about a girl born without a mouth, forced by nature into silence, unable to put into words her feelings or enjoy food. She grows up surrounded by doctors, being fed via perfusions until she can have surgery and finally be able to express herself through spoken words.

Her mouth, however, keeps wanting to shut itself, which I thought was a clever metaphor of how society shuts women down throughout history, and even today in certain countries/societies/religions.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the story is how Perihan's best friend can't find her voice to speak up about her father abusing her, despite herself not having any physical impairment.

The art style is rather simple, with tones of blues, greens, oranges, and greys that have some melancholy to them.