Posted by Will on 17th May 2025
The Dissident Club Signing With Taha Siddiqui
Gosh! is proud to host a signing with Taha Siddiqui creator behind the evocative tale of political resistance The Dissident Club from Arsenal Pulp Press on Wednesday 11th June 2025 at 6pm. Here’s what the publishers have to say about the book:
An urgent and compelling graphic memoir about a Pakistani investigative journalist at odds with his fundamentalist family and the Pakistani military that attempts to kidnap him
In Islamabad in 2018, Pakistani investigative journalist Taha Siddiqui is kidnapped at gunpoint and barely escapes being killed. He flees the country on the first plane to France with questions left unanswered: What motivated the attack? Was the tyrannical Pakistani military involved?
The Dissident Club is an action-packed graphic memoir about Islamic politics, complex family dynamics, and one man's dedication to truth and principle. With illustrator Hubert Maury, Siddiqui, winner of the prestigious journalism award Prix Albert Londres, tells the story of his intriguing life and career, beginning with his childhood in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan under the stern gaze of a fundamentalist Islamic father. Siddiqui rebels against his religion, but his personal freedom is constrained by strict Islam, especially after his father joins a jihadi mosque.
Following the Gulf War and then the shock caused by 9/11, Siddiqui enters university and begins his personal emancipation. He becomes a journalist, but as he reveals the crimes of the Pakistani military, he learns the hard way that journalists are moving targets. Once in Paris, he opens the Dissident Club, a bar dedicated to helping political dissidents from around the world.
An expansive Pakistani coming-of-age story, The Dissident Club documents Siddiqui's experiences as a young man fighting for truth and justice against the harsh backdrop of Islamic fundamentalism and corruption.
You can meet Taha and get a signed copy of the book on Wednesday 11th June, from 6pm. Pre-order a signed copy by clicking the link here.