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https://theconversation.com/australian-childrens-classics-shaun-tans-essential-migrant-story-still-mesmerises-20-years-on-288110>
"Holding Shaun Tan’s 2006 book
The Arrival, you get the immediate impression
of holding a found object – a family album or personal archive held together by
hopes and dreams.
The book, now celebrating its 20th anniversary, is a wordless visual narrative
about a man who leaves his wife and child to build a new future for his family.
He arrives in a strange new city, a stranger in a strange land. Its story is
told in comics form, with meticulous graphite pencil drawings, reproduced in
sepia tones.
In 2007, the
New York Times called it “mesmerizing” and said it tells “not an
immigrant’s story, but the immigrant’s story”. Now, Tan’s central theme of
immigration is more timely than ever, as politicans – particularly a resurgent
Pauline Hanson – conjure the dangerous fantasy of a homogeneous (white)
Australia migrants can assimilate to.
But
The Arrival shows the city as a place of intersections, where people from
different cultures may meet, interact and help each other – without giving up
their identity.
Many beautiful books come and go, but
The Arrival has both persisted in
Australia’s consciousness and captured imaginations worldwide. What makes it a
classic? And what exactly
is it?"
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
