Zerocalcare announces new graphic novel 'No Sleep till Shengal'

Italian cartoonist Zerocalcare (Michele Rech) has announced his new graphic novel, 'No Sleep till Shengal,' set for release in autumn 2022 via Bao Publishing. The book focuses on the Yazidi people, a pre-Islamic Kurdish minority from the Shengal region who fled their homeland and later returned with Kurdish assistance. Zerocalcare revealed the title and release period during an interview with Michele Foschini at the Salone del Libro di Torino. The work is seen as a follow-up to his 2015 serialized reportage 'Kobane Calling,' which documented conflicts between Kurdish forces and ISIS in Rojava. Zerocalcare stated that the Yazidis' hard-won autonomy, based on Kurdish revolutionary principles of women's liberation, coexistence, and self-defense, is now threatened by both the Iraqi state and Turkey, which has been bombing the area for a year. He emphasized the importance of continuing to cover real-life stories that do not end. Zerocalcare is known for bestselling graphic novels such as 'La profezia dell'armadillo' (2012) and 'Dimentica il mio nome' (2014), and gained wider fame through the Netflix animated series 'Strappare lungo i bordi.'