Tales From The Inner City – Shaun Tan Illustrated Novel Review

Posted By yonghow on January 24th, 2020

Tales from the Inner City is an illustrated novel by the Academy Award winning Australian artist Shaun Tan, who also bought us the highly acclaimed graphic novel The Arrival.

Disclaimer : I’ve not yet read the prose in Tales From The Inner City, but ever since I visited Shaun Tan’s art exhibition Welcome To Nowhere in Tokyo and seeing his fantastic paintings in person I’ve become a fan of his art work. This review is based purely on just the illustrations, although I do hope to read the book in its entirety in the near future to complete the experience.

Shaun Tan’s paintings in this book are at once haunting and mesmerizing at the same time, the anachronistic juxtaposition of wild animals in urban landscapes creating unsettling, surrealistic images. Seeing these larger than life paintings ( the art work used for the book’s cover image was painted on a massive canvas that spans an entire wall ) at the exhibition made the viewing experience even more invigorating.

Tales From The Inner City - Shaun Tan Illustrated Novel Review

Until I actually read the stories found in the book, I’ll just have to appreciate the illustrations as they present themselves, although I have a pretty good feeling both the prose and the art will complement each other beautifully. For the art work alone, I highly recommend it.

Tales From The Inner City – Shaun Tan Illustrated Novel details :

– Dimensions – 7.6 x 0.7 x 9.5 inches
– hardcover, 224 pages
– Full color, in English