So a Persian writer, an Arab artist and a Jewish editor walk into a room…

Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Actually, that’s something like the start of this unusual editorial adventure, the first of its kind. Set in the aftermath of Iran’s 2009 elections, Zahra’s Paradise is the fictional story of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has disappeared in the Islamic Republic’s gulags. Mehdi has vanished in an extrajudicial twilight zone where habeas corpus is suspended. Zahra’s Paradise weaves together a composite of real people and events. As the world witnessed what could no longer be kept from view, through YouTube videos, on Twitter and in blogs, so this story came to be and had to be told.

Join the Institute’s Foreign Policy In Focus project, which is running excerpts from this graphic novel that began as a Web comic for a discussion and book signing. Amir, the writer and co-creator of Zahra’s Paradise, is an Iranian-American human rights activist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He has lived and worked in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Afghanistan.