The Dead Queen of Bohemia

The Dead Queen of Bohemia by Jenni Fagan (The Panopticon, The Sunlight Pilgrims) is out today. I am very excited to say I illustrated the front cover and internal images.

Looks pretty damn cool – Irvine Welsh

The book is an extraordinary collection of poems.

The original brief was to illustrate the cover. Taking inspiration from the book itself, I ended up with a collection of illustrations to fit individual poems.

I think this is one book I will judge by its cover. It looks fabulous.

Ohhh, beautiful cover!! – Hank D

The poems are extremely visceral and I didn’t want to detract or overly influence the reader’s own imagination when reading them. I decided to just draw objects from them, rather than scenes. There are Wonder Woman Converse trainers, Doc Marten boots, a duck with sharp teeth and a dancing skeleton. They are in pencil – for complete honest simplicity. I love the way the publisher has allowed them to look like doodles scribbled into the book.

Nathan Thomas Jones’ illustrations really help to make this come alive. – Ed Crossan, Birlinn Books

I’m not a twitterer, but feeling the love via Jenni Fagan’s twits here:
https://twitter.com/jenni_fagan/status/667302860548272130

The Dead Queen of Bohemia is out today (14 April 2016) and is available in all good bookshops, as well as online at the publishers website:

Birlinn/Polygon

http://www.birlinn.co.uk/Dead-Queen-of-Bohemia-The.html

Blackwell’s

http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/The_Dead_Queen_of_Bohemia/9781846973390

Foyle’s

http://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/fiction-poetry/the-dead-queen-of-bohemia-new,jenni-fagan-9781846973390

Waterstone’s

https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-dead-queen-of-bohemia/jenni-fagan/9781846973390

and

Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Queen-Bohemia-Collected-Poems/dp/1846973392/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460632355&sr=8-1-fkmr2&keywords=the+dead+queen+of+bohemian

Also

You can see some photographs of people reading the book here.