Nicaragua: A Graphic Novel on How Power Corrupts
“Bestias” uses the Sandinista Revolution to illustrate it
In the book, British journalist John Carlin retells the story of Zoilamerica Narvaez and her denunciation of Daniel Ortega’s sexual abuse.
HAVANA TIMES – Human corruption after rising to power through a revolutionary process is at the heart of the graphic novel Bestias [“Beasts”], a new collaboration between British-born journalist and writer John Carlin and Spanish illustrator Oriol Malet. In it, they tell a universal story that is based on events in Nicaragua, but could now be repeated in Syria, they commented in a conversation with EFE News Agency.
“Animal Farm,” George Orwell’s famous dystopian fable, was inspired by the way that Stalinism squashed the ideals of the Russian Revolution. It now serves as the model for this graphic novel, where the characters are also animals.
Carlin and Malet previously collaborated on another graphic work called “Mandela and the general,” about the South African leader with whom Carlin maintained a friendship.
Mandela’s own example of political generosity in making way for other leaders proves to Carlin that there are revolutions that end well. However, he believes, the key lies in those who overthrow the tyrant not becoming a caricature of the deposed dictator, by then seeking eternal power for themselves.
The peak dramatic moment in Bestias is the true story told in a narrative by Carlin that Malet has illustrated – the case of [Zoilamerica Narvaez] – stepdaughter of Nicaraguan ruler and former guerilla hero Daniel Ortega. After Zoilamerica publicly denounced her stepfather for sexual abuse she’d suffered since childhood, she was rejected and blamed by her own mother, Rosario Murillo, the dictator’s wife and current vice president.
A nod to Gioconda Belli
In Bestias, a baby goat receives a nightly visit from the president in a luxurious palace room, with the collusion of her mother. The mother, like her partner, is then transformed little by little into a pig, the image of the satraps they themselves fought in the past.
“What distinguishes this story is the mother’s betrayal, illustrating power’s capacity to corrupt the mind, and not only in the habitual sense of accumulating and stealing money. This woman chose to betray her daughter and support the person who abused her for years. And she did it primarily out of political calculation,” Carlin emphasized. He dedicated the graphic novel to Gioconda Belli, a Nicaraguan writer exiled in Spain.
Bestias tells its whole story in simple form, with a chorus of three birds who comment and open the way for each different part, as in classical theater. The drawings by Oriol Malet have an expressionist, almost uglified style, different from the styles he’s used in previous works.
“I always subordinate my pencil and the colors I use to the story we want to tell. In this case, it was so sordid, grotesque and dantesco that it was immediately clear to me I’d need to use a poorly defined, organic line to create that disquieting sensation,” Malet explained. He’s known precisely for utilizing a different style in every project.
Parallels with Syria
Amidst the promotion of the new graphic novel Bestias, a revolution in Syria has toppled long-time dictator Bashar Al Asad. There’ve been explosions of joy in the streets, in a process that recalls in many small details that which is recounted in the book.
“Although we based ourselves on one specific story, this is something absolutely universal that repeats itself, so it’s curious that at this very moment we’re seeing something so fundamentally similar,” says Carlin.
His chief doubt is whether Syria’s new leaders will be capable of sharing power with other groups who weren’t necessarily involved in the armed struggle, “or if they’ll be transformed into pigs,” he jokes, referring to the animal species they’ve used to represent the tyrants.
Carlin recalls Asad when he came to power in 2000, married to a British citizen of Syrian origin after a post-graduate training in ophthalmology in London. “He seemed like a decent guy who wanted to reform the country. They were a very normal couple, Western in their ways and had exquisite manners.”
However, when he rose to power: “not only did he remain there for 24 years, but while he was serving tea to his guests, terrible tortures were taking place in his prisons,” Carlin emphasized.
First published in Spanish by Confidencial and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.