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The Lost Soul
Author
Illustrator
Joanna Concejo
Publication Date
February 23, 2021
Genre / Grade Band
Fiction / 4th − 5th
Language
English
Format
Picture Book
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Description
The only book in English for readers of all ages by Nobel Prize-winning novelist Olga Tokarczuk is a beautifully illustrated meditation on the fullness of life.
The Lost Soul is a deeply moving reflection on our capacity to live in peace with ourselves, to remain patient, attentive to the world. It is a story that beautifully weaves together the voice of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk and the finely detailed pen-and-ink drawings of illustrator Joanna Concejo, who together create a parallel narrative universe full of secrets, evocative of another time. Here a man has forgotten what makes his heart feel full. He moves to a house away from all that is familiar to him to wait for his soul to return.
The Lost Soul is a sublime album, a rare delicacy that will delight readers young and old.
"Olga Tokarczuk's The Lost Soul, an experimental fable illustrated by Joanna Concejo and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, resonates with our current moment. . . . What a striking, and lovely, material object it is." --New York Times
"The Lost Soul, by Olga Tokarczuk and illustrator Joanna Concejo, is a quiet meditation on happiness, following a busy man who loses his soul. . . It pours a childlike sense of wonder into a once-upon-a-time tale that is already resonating with adults around the world." -- Guardian
Publication date
February 23, 2021
Genre
Fiction
ISBN-13
9781644210345
Publisher
Seven Stories Press
BISAC categories
JUV039050 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Emotions & Feelings
JUV039220 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Values & Virtues
JUV022000 - Juvenile Fiction | Legends, Myths, & Fables | General
JUV039220 - Juvenile Fiction | Social Themes | Values & Virtues
JUV022000 - Juvenile Fiction | Legends, Myths, & Fables | General
Publishers Weekly
Nobel Prize-winning Polish novelist Tokarczuk (Flights) teams up with artist Concejo for an elegant, meditative parable about isolation and redemption. The minimal text opens with "Once upon a time" and describes John, a workaholic businessman in existential crisis who feels "as if the world around him were flat, as if he were moving across a smooth page in a math exercise book, entirely covered in evenly spaced squares." As he loses all sense of identity, a wise doctor diagnoses his spiritual malaise: "The world is full of people running about in a hurry... and their lost souls always left behind." John decides to cease his frantic lifestyle in the hope that he and his soul can reunite. Tokarczuk's poetic sensibility matches perfectly with Concejo's hushed, evocative drawings, which comment abstractedly on the story, depicting humans in Hopper-esque isolation from each other and the natural world, until they eventually interact and integrate. As they do, the monochromatic pencils gradually incorporate rich hues of green and orange, representing life again in balance. This sincere collaboration invites readers to reflect upon existential themes on their own terms. It's a soothing balm for tense, jagged times. (Feb.)
Copyright 2020 Publishers Weekly, LLC Used with permission. Olga Tokarczuk
Olga Tokarczuk (1962-) is an activist, public intellectual, and one of Poland's most highly regarded writers. She is winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature (given in 2019). In 2018 she won The International Man Booker Award for her novel, Flights (translated by Jennifer Croft), and twice (2009, 2015) won Poland's highest literary honor, the Nike (and the Nike Readers' Prize) as well as other prestigious literary awards. Her 2009 novel Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (translated into English by Antonia Lloyd-Jones), was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. Tokarczuk is the author of eight novels and two short story collections. The Lost Soul, the first book by Tokarczuk written for both children and adults was awarded a special mention of the Bologna Ragazzi Award in 2018. Tokarczuk's work has been translated into a dozen languages. She lives in Wroclaw, Poland. Illustrator Joanna Concejo (1971-) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland. Her work has been exhibited in salons and exhibitions France, South Korea, Portugal, and the Bologna Children's International Book Fair where her work won a Bologna Ragazzi Award Mention, and many other places. She is author and illustrator of books published in Poland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and South Korea. In 2013 she was Winner of the IBBY Book of Year for graphic design (for Książę w cukierni / Prince in a pastry shop, Format Editions), and in 2018 received a Mention/Fiction (for Zgubiona dusza / The Lost Soul). She lives outside of Paris, France. Translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones has translated works by several of Poland's leading contemporary novelists and reportage authors, as well as crime fiction, poetry, and children's books. Her translation of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by 2018 Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize. She is a mentor for the Emerging Translators' Mentorship Programme, and former co-chair of the UK Translators Association.
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