This chapter examines the entanglement of graphic life writing and melodrama in comics that narrate stories about the experiences of refugees. More specifically, it analyses how these comics construct emotional and moral messages through the interplay of these two modes of narration. By introducing the term “melodramatic life writing”, it provides a conceptual tool to analyse (graphic) life narratives that advocate for human rights through sentimentalism and Manichean morality. The work of melodramatic life writing is examined through Reinhard Kleist’s Der Traum von Olympia: Die Geschichte von Samia Yusuf Omar. Specific attention is paid to the comic’s expressive visual representation and mise-en-scène, its use of the character dynamics of victims, heroes, and villains, as well as melodramatic plot patterns, and, finally, its representation of the body and suffering. The chapter concludes that while melodramatic life writing aims at making the readers emotionally and morally compelled in the face of refugee plight, it carries several ethical and political complications, not uncommon in human rights and humanitarian communication overall. It runs the risk of simplifying societal problems and moral subjectivities, obscuring political context, highlighting personal experience over systemic issues, and naturalising the suffering of oppressed and underprivileged groups.