The Kickstarter project Young in Iran has been suspended by the platform over concerns the book was breaching sanctions on the country. Produced by the Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW) in collaboration with two teachers in Tehran, Young in Iran features 32 graphic memoirs by local young cartoonists. It launched on January 22, and had exceeded its $4000 goal with $8,418 from 185 backers.
Prior to this, the book’s entry on SAW’s website had stressed, “NO MONEY HAS OR WILL EVER CHANGE HANDS BETWEEN SAW AND ANY ENTITIES IN IRAN, so long as international sanctions are in effect.”
SAW responded in an official blog post, explaining Kickstarter “reached out to us via email asking for clarification, but in all frankness, it looked like spam,” and as a result “we ignored it. (Turns out you get a LOT of spam when you launch a Kickstarter!) There were no fruitful conversations in reinstating on their platform, but we feel good about their good faith efforts.”
Now available to order from SAW’s website, Young in Iran features stories by 30 anonymous cartoonists, all under 30, and all but two of whom are female, exploring “freedom, lack of freedom, frustration, desire, hope, family, and the kinds of deeply human experiences we all have, but within the context of a specific, totalitarian pressure.”
SAW states, “This book is like nothing else on Earth — an intimate, street-level view of life in a so-called ‘enemy’ country, through the lens of young people trying to understand the rules and possibilities of the world around them. Looking inside and to each other for strength, yet turning outward and seeing restrictions: What would you do in these circumstances?”
The book comes at an especially fraught time for Iran, with crackdowns on the most recent wave of protests (which began on December 28) escalating into massacres. Reports about the death toll range from 3,117, to over 7,000 dead. The editors, who went into hiding during last year’s war between Iran and Israel, told SAW, “Whatever happens, put out this book.”
– Additional reporting by Ollie Kaplan
