Autobiography by Omission: a Clean-Line Family Portrait in Nadia Hafid’s El buen padre (2020).

Abstract

The title of Nadia Hafid’s first graphic novel (Nadia Hafid, El buen padre, Barcelona, Sapristi Editorial, 2020) is a declaration of respect and understanding, a tag —in capital letters and without nuance— that rejects bitterness: the good father. The story is one of abandonment: the capitulation of a father, a Moroccan immigrant, who returns to his country leaving behind his wife

and three children. Some pages document with simplicity the reality of immigration —between defeat and violence— and the entrenched situation of those who are unable to take root. But beyond the father figure alone, the author draws a family portrait that deals with the complexities of absences, losses, and personalities shaped by these inheritances and wounds. Nadia Hafid’s work is clearly autobiographical in nature. This article proposes to analyse how the author works with the autobiographical genre, exploring new forms of narration and using an original graphic language. The study explores the way in which graphic sobriety allows the absence of a father whose spectral figure runs through the entire work to be captured.