About ten years ago he published the first book of the Italian comic book Michele Rech Zerocalcare, translated into Basque by the editorial La propzia dell'armadillo, Farmacia Beltza in 2021 under the title Armadillo. The two from the Hondamuinan and Kobane calling collection, a beautiful chronicle of the journey to the autonomous territory of Rojava, built by the Kurds in the midst of the Syrian civil war. The last one that has come to our hands follows the path of the latter: No sleep till Shengal. Among the Yezidias of northern Iraq, Zerocalcar spent several weeks in 2021 to gather in comic the massacre and the struggle for survival suffered by that people. "The threat of Peshmerg and the Government of Iraq, the Isis that is trying to reorganize, the bombing of Turkey's drones... but also the pain, anger and terror of the incomplete wound," the author says at the bottom of the comic book. "It's an injury to everyone, but also to oneself."

The cracks caused by the 2014 genocide are profound, evident in the characters appearing in the black and white comic. The testimonies, and the silences, are raw, but, as usual in the author, humor also has room when his conscience, personified by a wise armadillo, speaks, or when the readers appear to us with George Meats in the saws of the cartoons, or disguised by Erdogan teletubbien as cosplayer...

“What penis is over here?” asks Zerocalcar, who has been held inside the Iraqi police house. “If no one says anything, if no one looks… the massacres come,” the words of the representative of the Kurdish House of Rome say. I have said on a number of occasions, in schools, these kinds of comics should be used further to have a vision beyond textbooks.

Two things about translation: one, published in Basque before any other language by Farmacia Negra; and two, translated into Basque in a circular way by Koldo Izagirre. When it comes to reading and guessing the armadillo, I was influenced by the use of the Basque language, perhaps because it is too faithful to the original, because in them the Roman dialect prevails than the Italian. I'm afraid this doesn't scare readers who approach comics in Basque, as has happened to a person close to me. Fortunately, this is not the case with No sleep till Shengal.