The Library - Softcover

Chihoi

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1894994728 ISBN 13: 9781894994729

Publisher: Conundrum International, 2013

Synopsis

To debut our new Conundrum International Imprint we have chosen the stories of Chihoi, a young Hong Kong artist, who has had books published in Chinese, Italian and French. The Library is the first English edition of his work. Reading the short stories included in this volume is like reading someone else’s dreams. “The Library” or “Father” reminds one of Kafka; “I’m with my Saint” feels Gauginesque. All the stories feel like smudged emotions, they speak to regular hurt and deprivation, strength in silence and loneliness in numbers. Questions are asked without question marks and are left unanswered even as the stories end. The Library is book of beautiful pencil lines, written to illustrate the tales we know in our heart but have never witnessed. Chihoi is a poet of the quotidian, of life’s minutia, of little gestures, of silences. He is also the poet of the invisible, invoking the spirit of a dead person or a lost love, and rendering him/her real. He offers us his stories with a little melancholy at the corner of his smile and he illuminates them with a warm spark. He imbues them with a rhythm, like a conversation, by the pauses. His stories are more complicated than they appear, they are open and complex and full of little contradictions and they resonate long after we turn the last page. They are like the calm after a storm, when the wind finally dies down and the landscape is revealed anew.

About this title

About the Author

Chihoi is a Hong Kong artist who has been published widely in Europe in Italian and French. His books include the collaborative Hijacking, and The Train, and solo A L'Horizon and Still Life. He is one of the founders of the HK collective Cockroach. The Library is his English language debut.

Reviews

This is the first English translation of Hong Kong cartoonist Chihoi’s work, and it’s a beautiful, haunting, and surreal ride. Told in short snippets and vignettes, these dreamy, fable-like stories trace themes of death and loss throughout the collection. “Summer” glimpses a young man trying to understand the suicide of a friend who had gone abroad for school. “Father” presents a young man who comes home to discover his father has died and subsequently slips into a dreamscape, in which he is led to a wilderness by a snake and goaded into burying his father alive. “Borrowed Books” tells the tale of a man who checks out books that his recently deceased wife had loved in order to burn them for her. But this collection is not bleak. Chihoi’s stories, halfway between poetry and visions, also reveal meaningful discoveries and release from grief. The gauzy and beautifully strange pencil art invites long-lingering attention. This attractive and powerfully complex group of stories is a worthy addition to any graphic novel collection. --Tina Coleman

Edition details

• Publisher: Conundrum International
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1894994728
• ISBN 13: 9781894994729
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160