Justice

Before reading this graphic novel I had never heard of the Nepali Civil War which took place over the span of a decade from 1996-2006 with fighting between the Nepali Government and the Communist Party of Nepal. Caught in the crosshairs were tens of thousands of innocent Nepali people living in rural areas like the family in this story.
This story was a very surface level overview of the war meant to raise a wider awareness. While I appreciated learning about this war, I wanted to dig deeper to understand the motives of the Maoists. I also felt like ending the story when the brother had so much to tell about his time away left me wanting more in that regard as well.

This is a very important graphic novel.

It brought awarness to me of a civil war in Nepal and how that greatly affected the Nepali people by telling it through the eyes of a fictional family. The story is told through the perspective of Tara, she is the eldest daughter, as she has gone back home to her childhood house which she and her family had to flee during the war after her brother is taken by the rebels. She flashes back to right before he was taken to what lead them to leave the house. As an American, Justice brought to my attention a tradgic war I had never known. I know that I will carry the story of Tara and her family with me always, and I will wonder about the people in real life that had to live through 10 years of brutal attacks and heartache.

I would certain recommend this book, especially to middle grade and teenage kids; as it will share with them a story of other people's lives to help them better understand to be compassionate with the world around them.

A graphic novel that skims across the Nepalese Civil war to give a background of the 10 year conflict that rocked the country. I do feel the book was trying much more to bring awareness to a conflict and its aftermath, and was not trying to distill the motivations of the two sides to give a deeper understanding. Both are useful tools for graphic novels, but I greatly prefer the latter type.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for the e-ARC of this graphic novel! This graphic novel sheds light on a part of history that is often overlooked and not talked about. I had never read anything about the Nepali civil war before so this was a good, albeit brief, introduction to how the conflict impacted civilians. I thought the story was good and the characters as well, however, I wish the novel was longer so readers could have more time to get to know the characters and have more background about the war. Additionally, one critique I have is that the character introduction at the beginning of the novel spoiled some of the plot points. I also think that there should have been a trigger warning for suicide, as this was totally unexpected for me and I can imagine some potential readers would want to know about this content beforehand. Overall, though, this is an important novel sharing an important story that is underrepresented in mainstream literature.

'Justice: A Tale of the Nepali Civil War' becomes provides an extremely important perspective into a long-forgotten tale of war, politics and social unrest during the civil war that took place in Nepal from 1996 to 2006. The tale presented in this book's duration of ten years is divided in three chapters, each one tenser than the other, enabling the reader to experience difficulties that often stretched beyond normal imaginations. This is an absolute must-read, presented in quite the simple form of illustrations, for those who wish to know more about how different factions of dozens of countries across the world have one thing in common - the hunger for their rights and freedom from injustice.

In a Nutshell: An OwnVoices graphic novel telling us about the Nepali Civil War and its impact on innocent lives. I appreciate the intent and the effort, especially as this is an indie work. However, the book needs finetuning to deliver a greater impact. Informative but to a superficial level.

Plot Preview:
2003. Young Tara lives with her family in a small village in the foothills of the Himalayas. Her father is a farmer, and her mother, elder brother and younger sister help with the multitude of chores typical on a small farm. The “People’s War” instigated by the Maoists had already begun in 1996, but the lives of those in the hinterland was largely untouched by the war until then. However, soon both factions come knocking at their door with various demands, and the lives of all the family members change forever, especially after Sudeep, Tara’s elder brother, is taken by the rebels.
The story is narrated retrospectively in Tara’s perspective from 2009.

Nepal is the immediate neighbour of India, sandwiched between India and China, with the Himalayas passing between the Sino-Nepal border. In my school years, I knew of it only as the country where Mount Everest is situated. I had not been aware of the political situation of Nepal until the year 2001 when the then-King Birendra and his entire family were massacred at the hands of his son Prince Dipendra, who then turned the gun on himself, and was in coma for three days, during which he was still the de-facto king until his death made a surviving uncle inherit the throne. It was a story too crazy to seem real. Even then, I hadn’t heard about a civil war. So when I saw this graphic novel, I knew I had to give it a try.

The book begins with a brief note on Nepal and its geographical and cultural diversity. While I liked the information (So surprised to see this small nation have more than 100 ethnicities and 90 languages!), the introduction could have done much better by informing us of the socio-political situation in Nepal and the events that led to the civil war. There’s no mention of the reasons behind the conflict in this note, in the book, and in the author’s parting note.

Next up comes a comprehensive characters’ list. This is erroneously titled “Major Characters” when it actually compiles every single character from the story with a one-liner caption introducing them. Minor characters such as those who appear only on a single page could have easily been left out from this list. But the biggest issue for me was that the captions reveal major plot spoilers, including character deaths that occur in the final section. So disappointing!

Tara narrates the story from 2009, but she begins her reminiscences from 2003. The civil war started in 1996. So we don’t get any idea about what led to the rebellion and what happened in that period of eight years. The focus stays on Tara’s family, and as she is just a teenager when the incidents affecting her family occurred, we get to see what happened but get no analysis of why it happened. The overall effect is hence very shallow. Simply knowing the whats of history without the whys is useless.

The lack of depth is not just in terms of actual facts but also in terms of plot points. Sudeep is a crucial character as his experience after his kidnapping would have offered more first-hand insight into rebel thinking. But we simply don’t get to hear his side of the story. At one point, Tara’s parents leave their children with some relatives and stay in the capital for an extended period to seek information about their son. How do these poor farmers sustain themselves in a city for such a long time without any source of income? No information.

All this doesn’t deny the sadness of the plot and of what happens to an innocent family because of some misguided rebels. Political upheavals affect everyone, even families that are far away from central locations or, as in this case, a poor farming family whose only material wealth is their transistor radio.

The book ends with a glossary of Nepali words, which, to my exasperation, I discovered only after I completed the whole book. When the list of characters was at the start, the glossary also should have been at the start! It took me ages to realise that “Luri” wasn’t the name of a different character but a form of addressing a thin girl, and hence a pet name for Tara.

The simplistic story flow might have worked well for older middle-graders and young teens, had it not been for one shocking scene where a character attempts to hang themselves to death. This should have come with a trigger warning at the start as it’s quite troubling to see. Then again, we already know the character’s future thanks to the story being narrated in retrospect, so the suspense about whether the character survives the suicide attempt is also spoilt prematurely.

Somehow, a sixth sense told me that the art wouldn’t be to my taste, and sadly, that spidey-radar turned out to be accurate. It is not just that the art style is simplistic, befitting a children’s story than an adult graphic novel. But the nuances that make a graphic novel striking are missing. The colouring style is too straightforward. The captions don’t always match the panels, sometimes coming before or after the particular action occurs in the illustrations. The facial expressions seem a bit off at times, not matching the tone of the lines. Some of the characters are sketched in the same outfits throughout, even though the story takes place over years. That said, art is subjective, so this feedback won’t be applicable to all readers.

This book was originally conceived as a trilogy, and the first volume was released in 2023. However, the author subsequently decided to release this complete version in a single book. I think this is a good call, because the story is too brief to merit three separate volumes, and at just 120-odd pages, can easily be read at a go. The three chapters in this book flow well from each other. However, the QR-code adverts in between the chapters were distracting and annoying. This content should have been at the end of the book.

All in all, I expected to learn a lot more from the story than I actually did. I admire the sincere efforts put into bringing this OwnVoices story about a rebellion that we have barely heard about to the public eye, but perhaps a little tweaking would have helped it deliver a greater impact.

As I have specified before in my nonfiction/semi-fiction reviews, my ratings are always for the content and not for the intent. I find myself torn over this rating as I want to support South-Asian and indie literature, but if I still don’t know what exactly led to and conspired during the Nepali Civil War, the book didn’t meet its purpose.

To readers looking for a simplified narration of a historical event and to those seeking to embrace diverse literature from the smaller nations of the world, this could be a good starting point.

2 stars.

My thanks to Restart Publishing, LLC and NetGalley for the DRC of “Justice: A Tale of the Nepali Civil War”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.