Stuart Grudgings – Reuters/Lebanon Daily Star, 09/05/2011
Carlos Latuff
His cartoons are edgy, bold, and a thorn in the side of the Arab world’s tottering authoritarians – a gift to protesters from the unlikely setting of an apartment in beach-side Rio de Janeiro.
Carlos Latuff, a 42-year-old artist whose only family link to the Middle East is a Lebanese grandfather he never knew, has become a hero of the tumultuous Arab Spring with rapid-fire satirical sketches that have helped inspire the uprisings. All he has needed is his pen, a passion for the region’s struggles and a Twitter account that he uses to send out his cartoons.
Starting with the Tunisia uprisings last December, Latuff’s work has been downloaded by protest leaders and splashed on T-shirts and banners at protests from Egypt to Libya and Bahrain, becoming a satirical emblem of outrage.
