No words, it's Marianne's book of the year
Saturday December 20 2008
The Arrival
By Shaun Tan
Hodder Children, £11.49
The book that impressed me most this year was, in fact, one for children. It's called The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Hodder Children). I love this book with a passion! From the second I opened it, I could feel myself being deeply affected by it.
It is the story and journey of a lone emigrant, a man who leaves his wife and child and home to go to a strange new world.
It is told entirely in sepia coloured pictures -- there are no words.
Tan is an illustrator and writer from Australia and is the author of several acclaimed picture books like The Red Tree and The Lost Thing.
The Arrival, a wordless graphic novel, has won several awards.
In it, Tan captures the isolation and displacement of the emigrant in paintings that are hauntingly poignant, sometimes strangely unfamiliar, but utterly beautiful.
The scenes of departure are harrowing -- the absence of language actually heightens the sense of personal longing and also tells us that real communication comes from another place . . .
I strongly recommend this extraordinary book to both adults and children alike.
It's a gentle reminder that the most important journey in life is the journey of the heart -- one too often by-passed today in this age of super-materialism.
Marianne Gunn O'Connor is a literary agent. She represents Cecelia Ahern, Niall Williams and other leading writers.
- Marianne Gunn O'Connor
