Tales From When I Had A Face

A haunting illustrated novel over seven years in the making, Tales From When I Had A Face takes visual inspiration from the collections of fairy tales familiar to many readers: full page images juxtapose the text, complemented by smaller inline art. Brief sequential passages reminiscent of a graphic novel add impact and immersion. In total it contains over 100 illustrations.

Tales is intended to speak to anyone who has felt trapped between the multiple, often conflicting worlds, of past, present, and future. 

B&W edition $20

On Ayta’s seventh birthday, there came a knock on the door, and her namesake stood before her. Gran Ayta. Once a thing of myth, descended from legends. Now she seemed just a stooped old woman, but appearances can be deceiving.

Ayta’s lonely childhood was soon transformed by Gran’s fantastic stories of flight from one world to the next. From distant Siberia to the Second World, from there to the very Land of the Dead she had come, or so she claimed. And she had returned with secrets taken from that underworld, to teach her granddaughter.

Seven years later, her Gran would be dead. Ayta had to come to terms with the legacy she had passed on to her, bearing these myths in a world which has no need for what it sees as childish things. A childish world that she knew was soon to end.

Just when she thought she had finally left those tales in the past, she met Nyssa. A character straight out of Gran’s stories who was unknowingly bound by the same fate she was. Like all star-crossed lovers, their fate was written from the moment they crossed paths.