Saad Hajo shares twenty years’ worth of experience and lessons learnt on handling different forms of censorship in the Arab World
Full house on the evening of Monday 4 November 2019 at Manchester Central Library to hear from the brilliant Saad Hajo on "What it's Like to be a Cartoonist from the Middle East". In this rare encounter, Hajo gave us great insights into twenty years worth of experience of publishing in various Arabic newspapers and online media.
Hajo explored the lessons he has learnt and told us how he has handled different forms of censorship. Despite the wide variations in regimes and ruling governments in the Middle East, great similarities exist in terms of the political, societal and religious censorship that affects people, and especially journalists and artists. It was an amazing event. So much food for though!
Saad Hajo
Born in Damascus in 1968, Saad Hajo is an independent Syrian and Swedish cartoonist who graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Damascus in 1989.
Hajo publishes in the newspaper Folkbladet in Norrköping, Sweden and in Courrier International in Paris.
In the past he worked daily for twenty years with the Beirut-based newspaper As-Safir, one of the most renowned Arabic newspapers, as well as with several other Arabic newspapers such as An-Nahar in Beirut, the weekly newspaper Al Ahram Al Arabi in Cairo, Al-Quds Al-Arabi in London, and Sada Al Sham in Syria.
Saad Hajo has held many exhibitions around the world, including ‘Born Dictator’ in Sweden in 2010. He has been a jury member for various caricature competitions and was the winner of the 2015 EWK-prize in Sweden.