Dr Benjamin Dix is Senior Fellow at SOAS, University of London and Founding Director of the non-profit, PositiveNegatives, which produces literary comics and animations exploring social and humanitarian issues. Vanni was the basis for his PhD in anthropology, which examined methods of adapting complex testimony into sequential art. Dix has worked across Asia and Africa as a researcher, photographer and as a Communications and Liaison Manager for the United Nations. From 2004-8 he was based in the LTTE- (Tamil Tigers)controlled Vanni, in north Sri Lanka, throughout the post-tsunami reconstruction and subsequent civil war.
Still reeling from the devastating tsunami of 2004, Antoni and his family find their lives in turmoil when they are trapped in the crossfire between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers during the country’s merciless civil war.
Can they survive not just the loss of friends and family but also being forced from their home, leaving everything they know and love behind? Where will they go? And who will give them refuge?
Lindsay Pollock is a Senior Artist with PositiveNegatives, where he has illustrated a number of testimonial comics that have appeared on the BBC, exhibited at the Nobel Peace Centre and translated into multiple languages across Europe, Asia and Africa. Vanni is his debut graphic novel.
Arundhati Roy, author and activist
Jon Snow, Newscaster, Channel 4 News Graphic Novel UK: £16.99 ISBN 978-1-78026-515-5
newint.org
A FAMILY’S STRUGGLE THROUGH THE SRI LANKAN CONFLICT Vanni works in the tradition of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Joe Sacco’s Palestine, using research and eye-witness accounts to explore the personal cost of a deadly conflict. It brings to life one family’s struggle to survive both Sri Lanka’s civil war and its brutal conclusion, narrating their journey towards safety, which will take them thousands of miles from home. Based on survivor testimony, Vanni was inspired by Benjamin Dix’s experience of working in Sri Lanka for the United Nations during the war and draws on over four years of meticulous research, including first-hand interviews, official reports and cross-referencing with experts in the field. Elegantly drawn by Lindsay Pollock, and with a real sense of immediacy, Vanni takes readers through the unimaginable struggles, horrors and life-changing decisions faced by a family looking for hope during a time of immense loss.
‘The full story of the 2009 war in Sri Lanka has largely been ignored by the global press and international society. This graphic novel is telling the story to a new audience and simultaneously telling it in new ways to the few that already knew it. This Vanni story needs to be heard in order to avoid it happening again.’
Liv Tørres, Executive Director, Nobel Peace Center
BENJAMIN DIX
‘This is by any standards an important project. A significant voice in the call for truth and justice over the appalling war crimes which marked the awful end of the war in Sri Lanka. But what makes it particularly important is that it is told by a man who was there – a man who both cares about what happened, and understands how important it is that it never happens again.’
LINDSAY POLLOCK
‘The story of the 2009 war in Sri Lanka, in which tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were brazenly and brutally killed, [has been] buried by powerful countries with strategic and business interests in the region. This book seeks to unbury those terrible, sordid secrets and place them in clear view for the world to see.’
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VANNI
BENJAMIN DIX
LINDSAY POLLOCK
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Dr Benjamin Dix is Senior Fellow at SOAS, University of London and Founding Director of the non-profit, PositiveNegatives, which produces literary comics and animations exploring social and humanitarian issues. Vanni was the basis for his PhD in anthropology, which examined methods of adapting complex testimony into sequential art. Dix has worked across Asia and Africa as a researcher, photographer and as a Communications and Liaison Manager for the United Nations. From 2004-8 he was based in the LTTE- (Tamil Tigers)controlled Vanni, in north Sri Lanka, throughout the post-tsunami reconstruction and subsequent civil war.
Still reeling from the devastating tsunami of 2004, Antoni and his family find their lives in turmoil when they are trapped in the crossfire between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers during the country’s merciless civil war.
Can they survive not just the loss of friends and family but also being forced from their home, leaving everything they know and love behind? Where will they go? And who will give them refuge?
Lindsay Pollock is a Senior Artist with PositiveNegatives, where he has illustrated a number of testimonial comics that have appeared on the BBC, exhibited at the Nobel Peace Centre and translated into multiple languages across Europe, Asia and Africa. Vanni is his debut graphic novel.
Arundhati Roy, author and activist
Jon Snow, Newscaster, Channel 4 News Graphic Novel UK: £16.99 ISBN 978-1-78026-515-5
newint.org
A FAMILY’S STRUGGLE THROUGH THE SRI LANKAN CONFLICT Vanni works in the tradition of Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Joe Sacco’s Palestine, using research and eye-witness accounts to explore the personal cost of a deadly conflict. It brings to life one family’s struggle to survive both Sri Lanka’s civil war and its brutal conclusion, narrating their journey towards safety, which will take them thousands of miles from home. Based on survivor testimony, Vanni was inspired by Benjamin Dix’s experience of working in Sri Lanka for the United Nations during the war and draws on over four years of meticulous research, including first-hand interviews, official reports and cross-referencing with experts in the field. Elegantly drawn by Lindsay Pollock, and with a real sense of immediacy, Vanni takes readers through the unimaginable struggles, horrors and life-changing decisions faced by a family looking for hope during a time of immense loss.
‘The full story of the 2009 war in Sri Lanka has largely been ignored by the global press and international society. This graphic novel is telling the story to a new audience and simultaneously telling it in new ways to the few that already knew it. This Vanni story needs to be heard in order to avoid it happening again.’
Liv Tørres, Executive Director, Nobel Peace Center
BENJAMIN DIX
‘This is by any standards an important project. A significant voice in the call for truth and justice over the appalling war crimes which marked the awful end of the war in Sri Lanka. But what makes it particularly important is that it is told by a man who was there – a man who both cares about what happened, and understands how important it is that it never happens again.’
LINDSAY POLLOCK
‘The story of the 2009 war in Sri Lanka, in which tens of thousands of Tamil civilians were brazenly and brutally killed, [has been] buried by powerful countries with strategic and business interests in the region. This book seeks to unbury those terrible, sordid secrets and place them in clear view for the world to see.’
V A N N I
VANNI
BENJAMIN DIX
LINDSAY POLLOCK