The White Ravens Database

Presented by   Internationale Jugendbibliothek / International Youth Library

Spanish / Mexico

Antes no había nada. Después comencé a imaginar mi propio jardín

(Before there was nothing. Then I began to imagine my own garden)

Carrer, Chiara (text/illus.)
Lumbreras, Ernesto (transl.)
Zapopan: Petra ed., 2015. – [126] p.
ISBN 978-607-7646-65-5
coedition with CONACULTA. ISBN 978-607-745-131-0

Plants

Reading age: 10+

White Ravens issue: 2016

OPAC

Italian illustrator and author Chiara Carrer broaches the secrets of the fascinating, endlessly varied universe of plants in this book that resembles a notebook or diary. She draws using a diverse array of techniques or paints with a strong and colourful brushstroke. Some pages are line-based, others colour-based, some things are minutely worked out, other things cast sketch-like onto paper. Carrer follows things to their origins, studies them in detail, compares them, categorizes flower pistils, muses about seeds, roots and the silhouettes of tree crowns. Some pictures are informative, other associative. The texts follow suit: some are scientifically precise, others fleeting and allusive, including some precious poems and aphorisms. Carrer is also sensitive to the sound and texture of words, as when for example she places smooth, shiny, fissured, scaly and gnarled tree barks side by side. “Antes no había nada” is a surprising, sensuously rich and personal book that invites readers to repeatedly let themselves be absorbed by it.