Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, Goele Dewanckel, I Capelli del Giuggiolo, 2022

The time of a childhood, a mother’s care, a sister’s hair to comb, warmth, life immersed in a lush nature that nourishes and repairs. But everything is quickly annihilated. The outbreak of war is sudden, loved ones are lost, fear advances, fire destroys, and a girl finds herself thrown into a colder, livelier, often incomprehensible country. She is alone. Memories and hopes blur with reality, her story is analyzed, vivisected in search of data and objective evidence by an anonymous committee. How to believe the prodigy that saved her? Ubah Cristina Ali Farah immerses us in a painful, ever-present, all too often removed tale in which nature remains an ally of innocence and comes to her rescue, protecting her from the follies of human conquest and domination. It is a tale in which Goele Dewanckel’s illustrations combine the ancient tradition of Flemish tapestries, Somali mural painting and the elegance of the master of the Sienese school Duccio di Buoninsegna in a surprising and intense way.