Le Nom du Père is a book project at the intersection of investigative journalism, personal narrative and graphic storytelling. It recounts the murder of Hrant Kurkdjian and his employees in Beirut in 1985, the arrest of his three killers, their escape from a Lebanese prison, and their disappearance for nearly thirty years before they resurfaced by chance in Vienna, Austria, where they had been living under false identities.

Against the backdrop of a case shaped by flight, concealment and injustice, the book unfolds a second, more intimate dimension: that of a daughter who refuses to let her father’s memory disappear. The narrator is Annie Kurkdjian, the daughter of the murdered man, who begins her investigation following information she receives in 2013. For more than ten years, she draws on extraordinary determination and resourcefulness to ensure that the perpetrators are found, identified and brought to justice.

The story is told from Annie’s perspective and through the eyes of those around her, giving a central place to the victims of this story. The judicial investigation becomes an inner journey as well: that of a woman confronting the loss of her father, family memory, a profound sense of injustice and the need to make a truth heard that has long been silenced.

Conceived as a graphic novel, the book seeks to bring together the expressive power of drawing and the precision of documentary storytelling. For Annie Kurkdjian, the challenge is to preserve her distinctive graphic style while adapting it to sequential storytelling. For Christophe Dabitch, it is about finding the right narrative approach—one that remains true to Annie’s voice and is capable of carrying a story that is expansive, deeply sensitive and profoundly human.

Aimed at a broad audience interested in Lebanon, painting, graphic novels, investigative narratives and stories of justice, the project will unfold across Beirut, Paris, Vienna and Le Four à Pain in [France]. Publication of the book is planned for early 2028.

By supporting Le Nom du Père, the Francis Kurkdjian Endowment Fund is helping to bring to life a project in which a deeply personal story becomes a universal graphic narrative—a space for healing, truth and resistance to forgetting.