Mana Neyestani has been working as a cartoonist in Iran since he was sixteen. He worked for reformists and governmental newspapers, until one drawing of a cockroach caused his imprisonment and his flight from the country in 2005. He then worked in Malaysia between 2006 and 2011, and finally in France, where he now lives as a political refugee. His illustration work for iranian websites has been shown around the world since 2009, and also during protests which took place against the tyrannical and theocratic regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Through his cartoons, Mana Neyestani looks at the the world with a wry sense of humor, he not only talks about the political situation in Iran and other countries of the middle East but also about the contradictions and hypocrisy of the western world.
Mana Neyestani is a member of the association Cartooning for Peace, created by the french cartoonist Plantu, and he received the international Press illustration award in 2012, given by theseventh secretary-general of the UN, Koffi Annan.
18 x 18 cm, softcover with flaps
440 pages
b&w and colors
Mana Neyestani was born in Tehran in 1973. He graduated as an architect but began his career in 1990 as a cartoonist and illustrator for many cultural, literary, economic and political magazines. With the rise of Iranian reformist newspapers in 1999 he became an editorial cartoonist.
Sidelined as a political cartoonist, Neyestani was forced to do children’s cartoons. One he did in 2006 led to his imprisonment and flight from the country. From 2007 to 2010 he lived in exile in Malaysia, doing cartoons for dissident Iranian websites worldwide. In the wake of the fraudulent election of 2009, his work has become an icon of defiance to the Iranian people. Neyestani has won numerous Iranian and international awards, most recently the 2010 CRNI Award for Courage. Since 2011, he lives in Paris, France with his wife. They are both refugees.
