5 Reasons to Read ‘The One Hundred Nights of Hero’ by Isabel Greenberg

This book is brilliant! That can be your first reason to pick up this gorgeous hardcover. It is also one of the best feminist graphic novels out there. I read it and immediately explored more work by Isabel Greenberg. (Absolutely fell in love with The Encyclopedia of Early Earth too. The Encyclopedia of Early Earth explores the world building and foundation on which One Hundred Nights of Hero is set in. But you can read them in any order. You will still love both! In One Hundred Nights of Hero, we are invited to an imagined land in the medieval ages. This is the story of women’s struggles — of being heard in a world that isn’t very kind to them. One Hundred Nights of Hero is beautifully embroidered with folk tales and myths and offers a visual treat through the art — minimal colours, strong, bold lines — in the comic strips.

Isabel Greenberg takes the familiar theme of Arabian Nights and spins it into a story of her own. A major portion of One Hundred Nights of Hero is set in the Empire of Migdal Bavel. Cherry is love with her maid, Hero, but is married to Jerome. Jerome is an insensitive man who strikes a bet with his friend Manfred on how pure and innocent Cherry is. According to the terms of the wager, if Manfred can seduce Cherry in one hundred nights, he can claim Jerome’s castle and wife for himself.  Hero, a member of the League of Secret Story Tellers, consoles Cherry and they make a plan to distract Manfred by narrating stories each night for 100 nights.

I love the word play that Isabel Greenberg uses here – the woman who tells stories as a silent rebellion is named ‘Hero’! Hero’s stories are fanciful, imaginative and tinged with love, betrayal, femininity and oppression. More reasons? Here you go:

1. A Woman-Centric Feminist Graphic Novel

Yes!! I want to shout this out from rooftops that all the main characters are women and they all touch your heart, be it as minor characters or main characters. God is a woman. Moon is a woman. The story tellers are women. And female friendships are valued throughout the book.

2. Gorgeous art by Isabel Greenberg

The art is simply splendid. Greenberg alternates between a minimal palette of black and white to strips with a single dominant colour. This really sets the mood of each portion of the book.

3. Fantastic Stories of Women and by Women

Though there aren’t one hundred stories in the book, there are a lot of them. We start with the story of creation which was fantastic and instantly won my heart. After that we move on to stories told by Hero, some of which are just stories and some are true stories of her ancestors; some are familiar (like the story of the dancing princesses) and some are new.

4. Sisters and Words in One Hundred Nights of Hero

Women were not allowed to read or write. There is a story of five sisters whose mother passed on a ‘sinful and wicked skill to them… which was absolutely verboten for women in the Empire of Migdal Bavel to practice…But the sisters read and wrote in ink, charcoal, mud paint and pencil and they were not sorry.’ Needless to say, their story does not have a happy ending. Women were forced to be docile and answerable to men but some of them indulged in the luxuries of reading and writing that slowly led to the formation of ‘a secret society of story tellers.’

5. This feminist graphic novel Smashes Patriarchy

Beneath the sturdy exterior of a nice story, this book makes us think about how women were (are?) not given the same rights as men, how they struggled and fought, how they formed secret groups as an act of rebellion. Remember the protests for the right to vote, wage gap, rise of women writers in literature and many other milestones? You can find glimpses of all of them in Hero’s stories. There are stories that allude to the faint lines that overlap beliefs and the regimental structure of religion. By the end of the book, Hero and her ancestors  are synonymous for the women who have laid down their lives so that we (by we, I mean women specifically) can stand as equals to men. The book also touches on themes of how women and men perceive the world differently and makes the reader grieve for the martyrs in the book.

Final Verdict

One Hundred Nights of Hero is surely an investment for your bookshelves. Feminist themes, beautiful art work and captivating stories are capsuled within these nights. The characters are guaranteed to make you laugh, giggle and weep. We still have a long way to go. But there are many Heros in different names fighting battles, silent and otherwise, for the rest of us. And there are ‘Hero(s)’ in all of us. Never forget your stories. Remember them; tell them. Isabel Greenberg seems to whisper that we are all members of the League of Secret Story Tellers through her novel.

Read this book as soon as possible.

Title : The One Hundred Nights of Hero
Author : Isabel Greenberg
Publisher : Jonathan Cape
Publication: 2016
Language : English
Pages : 224
Rating : 5/5

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