The Lost Soul

Mentorship Programme, and former co-chair of the UK Translators Association.

an Important Fable by a writer who went on to win the 2018 Nobel Prize. . . . Along the way we are treated to Concejo s lush, detailed representations, and to quietly dramatic juxtapositions of full-page images. . . . The Lost Soul, rendered with skillful precision in pencil, asks readers to make connections that aren t always immediately clear between two pictures or between word and image. . . . Fittingly for a book about the harmonious reunion of two parts, the double spread is the basic unit of visual storytelling for The Lost Soul, and it s particularly effective in the showstopping scene in which the man and the soul gaze at each other with serene acknowledgment at long last. . . . [W]hat a striking, and lovely, material object it is."
The New York Times

Olga Tokarczuk s simple words and Joanna Concejo s tender images tell a story we need to hear and see now in our brutal present the parable of a soul lost and found.
Siri Hustvedt, author of Memories of the Future

"The Lost Soul is a treasure. Tokarczuk and Concejo offer their readers another way to see the velocity of days, the grace in waiting, and time itself. Turning Concejo s pages of wonderful drawings gave me a much-needed pause, and a reassuring perspective on loss, patience, and reward."
Leanne Shapton, author of Guestbook

"Nobel Prize winning Polish novelist Tokarczuk (Flights) teams up with artist Concejo for an elegant, meditative parable about isolation and redemption. The minimal text opens with Once upon a time and describes John, a workaholic businessman in existential crisis who feels as if the world around him were flat, as if he were moving across a smooth page in a math exercise book, entirely covered in evenly spaced squares. As he loses all sense of identity, a wise doctor diagnoses his spiritual malaise: The world is full of people running about in a hurry... and their lost souls always left behind. John decides to cease his frantic lifestyle in the hope that he and his soul can reunite. Tokarczuk s poetic sensibility matches perfectly with Concejo s hushed, evocative drawings, which comment abstractedly on the story, depicting humans in Hopper-esque isolation from each other and the natural world, until they eventually interact and integrate. As they do, the monochromatic pencils gradually incorporate rich hues of green and orange, representing life again in balance. This sincere collaboration invites readers to reflect upon existential themes on their own terms. It s a soothing balm for tense, jagged times."
Publishers Weekly

"A collaboration between two masters, one a writer and the other an artist. It s the story of a man who feels his life has lost meaning, and we follow his voyage through a mysterious and haunting inner world.
Lydia McOscar, Brookline Booksmith

"There is something deeply moving in this slim volume of silent images and prose. Like so much of [Tokarczuk's] other work, [The Lost Soul] addresses our most contemporary problems and conditions before we can know them ourselves like our frantic thoughtless romping of time and earth, which the pandemic suddenly made us see. . . . In Concejo s drawings and Tokarczuk s mysteriously sparse prose. . . we move closer to this space of silence, of growth, where we can begin to find what we have long ago forgotten and lost."
Marek Makowski, English Instructor, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"[A] beautiful collaboration with Joanna Concejo, a visual artist and fellow Pole, and Tokarczuk s longtime translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones. The Lost Soul is a simple story about what happens when we are forced to wait for the little feet of our inner child to catch up with the hurried pace of life. . . In a time of uncertainty, stagnation, and grief, Tokarczuk and Concejo offer consolation that we too might stop and recognize what is enough, endure our own peaceful winters, and possibly let go of the craving for more than that."
World Literature Today

"Tokarczuk and Concejo offer a beautiful, consoling little book that encourages us to let go of the impulse to be perpetually busy, and to make sure we haven t left our souls behind." The Calvert Journal