'Days of Onion'.
B.Carrot is a graphic journalist, originally from Jerusalem but nowadays based in the Netherlands. She uses the comics medium to address social-political issues, and gained much media attention with her debut graphic novel 'Alle Dagen Ui' ('Days of Onion', 2020), a real-life account of the bureaucratic treatment of asylum seekers in the Netherlands.
Early life
B.Carrot is the pen name of Anat Segal, who was born in Jerusalem in 1985. Her background fuelled her interest in human rights, the distribution of wealth and natural resources, the balance of power and other humanitarian and political subjects. An important inspiration was Joe Sacco's political graphic novel 'Palestine', about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2006, Segal moved to Amsterdam to study Visual Arts at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. She ended up staying in the Netherlands, where she has participated in several initiatives involving political and social themes. Since 2013, she is one of the organizers of "F-Word, a Fantastic Feminist Festival", held annually in Amsterdam.
'Friday'.
Social engagement
Her short comic stories have appeared in magazines and zines, and on the online platforms Pulp de Luxe and Drawing The Times. Some focus on local issues. 'We Are Here' (Drawing the Times, 2018), for instance, deals with a self-organized group of refugees in Amsterdam's Rapenburg neighborhood. 'Born Optimistic' was her contribution to 'Stories from Overvecht' (2020), a collective documentary project initiated by Het Huis van Betekenis, portraying residents of the Overvecht district in Utrecht. Her fiction stories are also socially engaged. The self-published 'Friday' (2017) tells the story of an Israeli pro-Palestinian activist, who joins her family for a traditional Friday dinner after demonstrating in the West Bank. The story was picked up by the Pulp de Luxe platform in the following year.
'Alle dagen ui'.
Graphic novels
Between 2016 and 2019, B.Carrot followed a Masters program in graphic storytelling at the Sint Lukas School of Arts in Brussels, Belgium. She graduated Cum Laude with her debut graphic novel 'Alle Dagen Ui' ("Days of Onion"), which was published by Soul Food Comics in the following year. The title refers to the Arabic saying "Days of honey, days of onion", meaning "days of prosperity, days of adversity". The book tells the real life account about her friend Saied Al-Karim, a political refugee from Egypt, who is detained upon his arrival at Schiphol airport. During his one-year ordeal in a Dutch detention center, Al-Karim was bullied, tormented by insecurity and restrained from contact with the outside world. Official complaints resulted in punishments. With her moody drawings with sober colors, B.Carrot turned his story into a shocking graphic novel that criticized the Dutch immigration politics and its bureaucracy. Al-Karim's story gained much media attention upon the book's release, in March 2020.
In her next graphic novel, 'Uitweg' (Oogachtend, 2024), B.Carrot again showed her social commitment by addressing the self-determination of women. The main character is Magda, a young Polish teacher who becomes accidentally pregnant. However, her country is conservative and deeply religious, and abortion is a heavy taboo, with Magda becoming more and more desperate for a way out.
Graphic contributions
In 2024, B.Carrot participated in the international exposition and graphic novel project 'Het Onvoorstelbare Verbeeld' (Scratch Books, 2024), telling stories from the Nazi concentration camps Neuengamme (Germany), the Dossinkazerne (Belgium) and Camp Westerbork (The Netherlands). The other participating artists were Guido van Driel, Erik de Graaf, Melanie Kranenburg, Sterric, Jennifer Daniel, Wide Vercnocke, Milan Hulsing, Tobi Dahmen and Jeroen Janssen/Arezoo Moradi.
Other work
B.Carrot is also a baby card designer and illustrator for books and other socially engaged publications and projects. She lives and works in Nijmegen.
