This unique presentation of the best-selling, internationally acclaimed graphic novel The Arrival and a new companion volume of commentary and developmental drawings

Sketches from a Nameless Land, beautifully packages the two books within a traveller's suitcase that also contains a limited edition numbered Shaun Tan print of an illustration from The Arrival.

The Arrival is a migrant story told as a series of wordless images that might seem to come from a long forgotten time. A man leaves his wife and child in an impoverished town, seeking better prospects in an unknown country on the other side of a vast ocean. He eventually finds himself in a bewildering city of foreign customs, peculiar animals, curious floating objects and indecipherable languages.

With nothing more than a suitcase and a handful of currency, the immigrant must find a place to live, food to eat and some kind of gainful employment. He is helped along the way by sympathetic strangers, each carrying their own unspoken history: stories of struggle and survival in a world of incomprehensible violence, upheaval and hope.

This collector's edition will fascinate anyone who has fallen under the spell of Shaun Tan s timeless story, and offers a revealing insight into the craft of one of Australia s most compelling author-illustrators. The Arrival has become one of the most critically acclaimed books of recent years, a wordless masterpiece that describes a world beyond any familiar time or place. How did it come to be created, and what inspired its unique and captivating story?

In Sketches from a Nameless Land, author Shaun Tan explains the origins of his ideas, using examples from early research and concept sketches through to finished artwork. In tracing this evolution, he sheds light on the silent language of images, the spirit of the migrant experience and the artists creative journey.