In Carol Isaacs’s new graphic novel, a magical abaya reveals a family history, bringing the world of Jewish Iraq vividly to life
How do you write a family story your parents don’t tell you? In her new children’s graphic novel The Cloak From Baghdad, adapted from her award-winning graphic memoir The Wolf of Baghdad, Carol Isaacs explores memory, identity and belonging through Louise, the daughter of Iraqi Jewish immigrants growing up in 1970s England. Louise knows she is different long before she understands the history and silences that set her apart.
Louise is the only Middle Eastern Jew among the small minority of Jewish students in her large British school. Olive skin, dark curly hair. Jews come from Europe, don’t they? This book is an answer to that assumption.
It is also the book I wish I’d had growing up as a Middle Eastern Jew in Australia. I recognised Louise’s searching: why her parents never spoke about Iraq and why they silenced their past. I grew up not really knowing what it meant to be the daughter of Iraqi Jews. Like Louise, there were words I mispronounced, Arabic I didn’t understand, stories I half-heard, things I translated without knowing what I was carrying. There was shame too: when your home, your food, your words, your grandmother’s voice feel too much.
