

The fact that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive and that they can co-exist in the grand scheme of things is very important, of course, without mitigating the abuser at any given point. Moreover, the book brings forth the so relevant idea that a perpetrator can be at the same time a victim and an abuser. This is what propelled the story of Bezimena which deals with the topic of perpetration, abuse and highlights the need of acknowledging and discussing the reality of female perpetrators and the need to break the stereotypes of women as naive and caring individuals. She luckily escaped him and realised that perpetrators have all shapes and forms, regardless of their gender and age.

Of her time in her mother’s country, Bunjevac talks about at the beginning of the book `Bezimena`, the most heartbreaking story being the one about a girl she befriended there who profited off of their friendship in order to set her up with an older predator who wanted to sexually abuse her, on film, in order to probably blackmail her later. In Yugoslavia, she went to the Djordje Krstic School for Applied Arts. Because of the family animosities, Nina’s mother returned to Serbia where they resided until 1990, when Bunjevac returned back to Canada. She talks more about the trauma it generated in the graphic novel `Fatherland: A Family History( 2014), a book I highly recommend should you want to discover more about the implications of having a perpetrator as your paternal figure. During the bombing he accidentally died however, his violent past will have a great influence on the development of Bunjevac both as an artist and as a human being. Her parents split when she was two because her father, Peter Bunjevac was a violent Serbian nationalist who tried to detonate a bomb in Toronto. Nina Bunjevac is a Canadian, born Serbian, cartoonist whose parents immigrated from Yugoslavia in 1973. Before analysing the novel, I will tell you a little bit about its creator, for it is relevant to understand where the ideas originated from and how and why Bunjevac decided to illustrate such sound problems. In today’s article, I will talk about the graphic novel titled `Bezimena`, written and illustrated by Nina Bunjevac, a novel which deals with abuse, perpetrators and trauma in such an elegant way, it will most definitely shock you.
