THIS COUNTRY is a gorgeously illustrated and written debut graphic memoir about belonging, identity, and making a home in the remote American West, by New Yorker cartoonist Navied Mahdavian.

Join us to hear more about his “touching, personal, and frequently hilarious”(Reza Farazmand, writer and illustrator of Poorly Drawn Lines) debut. 

Mahdavian’s beautifully written and unflinchingly honest graphic memoir charts his growth and struggles as an artist, citizen, and new father. It celebrates his love of place and honors the relationships he makes in rural America, touching on dynamics like culture, environment, and identity in America, and even articulating difficult moments of racism and brutality he found there as a Middle Eastern American. With wit, compassion, and a sense of humor, Mahdavian’s insider perspective offers a unique portrait of one of the most remote and wild areas of the American West.

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Navied Mahdavian has been a contributing cartoonist at the New Yorker since 2018. His work has also been published in Reader’s Digest, Wired, and Alta Online and the books The Rejection Collection and Send Help! Before becoming a cartoonist, he taught the fifth grade, where he learned most of his jokes. Mahdavian was born in Miami and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Lorraine Monteagut is a Cuban-Colombian writer born in Miami, Florida. She holds a PhD in communication from the University of South Florida, where she began her research on bruja feminism and the reclamation of ancestral healing traditions. Inspired to the spiritual life by her great grandmother, who was an espiritista in Cuba, she facilitates astrology workshops and moon circles in her local community in Tampa, Florida. She loves hiking, gardening, and backyard beekeeping.