Holtzbrinck Lecture

Not Here but Everywhere: A Graphic Novel between the Middle East and Midwest

Özge Samanci’s graphic novel Not Here but Everywhere uniquely follows two characters in parallel: on the odd pages of the book, it tells the story of Helen, a 40-year-old American professor of art history currently teaching in Istanbul. On the even pages, it tells the story of Deniz, a 25-year-old Turkish graduate student in biochemistry at a small college in Athens, Ohio. With each turn of the page, the characters’ stories progress, in two different cities, side-by- side, each in relation to the other. Their seemingly disparate worlds are ultimately unified via common themes and common characters.