A unique picture book for adults where language, design and politics intersect. First published in 1905, German poet Christian Morgenstern's piece is a darkly comic linguistic caprice. This fun romp populated by punctuation marks as characters nonetheless suggests systems of control that go beyond language. This illustrated edition is a brilliantly inventive dance of text and image, translated faithfully by Sirish Rao, with typographic illustrations by Rathna Ramanathan.

 

There are 32 pages in this book. This is a picture book. A picture book uses pictures and text to tell the story. The number of words varies from zero ('wordless') to around 1k over 32 pages. Picture books are typically aimed at young readers (age 3-6) but can also be aimed at older children (7+). This book was published 2010 by Tara Books .

Sirish Rao has written a number of children's books and also co-authored (with Gita Wolf) retellings of several myths and fables, Antigone being one of them. He wrote his first novel, Real Men Don't Pick Peonies at the age of 22. He has also contributed to An Ideal Boy and Baby!, two books on Indian popular imagery published by Dewi Lewis (both available from Turnaround). Anushka Ravishankar has made a name for herself internationally as an Indian children's writer, with over ten books of verse, fiction and non-fiction. The award-winning author of Tiger on a Tree, she has pioneered the Indian English nonsense verse form, bringing it to international attention. Rathna Ramanathan runs minus9, her own graphic design studio and has designed over twenty books in her six years working with Tara Books.