Evil Eyes Sea Ozge Samanci 9781941250631

The Best Graphic Novels of 2024, The Guardian

Best Graphic Novels for Adults 2024, American Library Association

A feminist political mystery set in Istanbul during the 1995 elections tells the story of two broke students who witnessed an unusual death on a scuba diving expedition. As the case deepens, they become increasingly entangled with political corruption, religious pressure, and possibly murder.

They try to return to their every day, but their lives are increasingly entangled with the political corruption, religious pressure, and economic instability that results from their experience. Samanci says, "The autobiographically-inspired story I tell in Evil Eyes Sea emerged from my college years in Istanbul, my quirky friends, and my struggles with being a young woman in Turkey's male-centric culture. In this book, I share a window into a country where narrow political views limit personal power - a place that can be beautiful, but also cruel."

Ozge Samanci is a media artist, graphic novelist, and Associate Professor at Northwestern University. She received her Ph.D. in Digital Media from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2009. In 2017, Ozge received the Berlin Prize, and I was the Holtzbrinck Visual Arts Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Her autobiographical graphic novelDare to Disappoint(Farrar Straus Giroux, 2015) received international press attention and was reviewed inThe New York Times,The Guardian,Slate,New Republic,Paste Magazine, and theDaily Beast, among others.Dare to Disappointreceived the 2016 New York Book Show Award and the 2016 Middle East Book Award and has been translated into Korean, Dutch, Romanian, Italian, and Turkish. Ozge's illustrations have appeared inThe Wall Street Journal,Slate,The Huffington Post, andThe Rumpus, among other publications.