Creation - Bhajju Shyam and Gita Wolf

Creation by Bhajju Shyam and Gita Wolf / ISBN 9789383145034 / A handmade silk-screened 24-page hardcover, about 11 x 11 inches, from Tara Books (India)

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From a fish waiting to be born, to the beginning of art and the necessity of death, lore from the Gond tribal community in central india abounds in stories of origins, transformations and endings. Celebrated Gond artist Bhajju Shyam gathers together these tales for the first time. By linking the cosmic with the everyday, he expresses the essence of each myth in ten sequential images. This extraordinary visual narrative of cyclical time takes us from the germinal moment to the turnaround point… where death once again transits into renewal. Gita Wolf’s English text recreates the terse wisdom of Bhajju Shyam’s Hindi expressions with great nuance. This handmade silkscreen-printed edition recreates the brilliant conceptual art of the book, with ink, line and paper combining to add depth and texture to every page

Bhajju Shyam belongs to the Gond tribe of artists--a community of highly visual story-tellers--from Madhya Pradesh in India. His captivating art keeps the symbolic density of the Gond style, bringing to it the intelligence and clarity of his own vision.

Gita Wolf started Tara Books as an independent publishing house based in India. An original and creative voice in contemporary Indian publishing, she is known for her interest in exploring and experimenting with the form of the book. She has written over twenty books for children and adults. Several have won major international awards and been translated into multiple languages.