The Arrival (graphic novel)

A man leaves his home to find work and support his family, whose home has apparently become unsafe. In the new land, the man goes through a lengthy administrative process and manages to find a small living space. Although he struggles to understand the different language, navigate the unknown city and to find a secure job, he makes new friends of the locals and learns of the struggles of other refugees that have fled their homes due to slavery and sought asylum from war, sharing his own experiences as well. Eventually, the man’s family joins him in the new land, and they settle into a new, happy life. Gene Yang has described the novel as conveying messages of solitude, alienation, and hope in a foreign land. == Style ==

Gene Yang has noted the resemblance between the illustrations and aged photos, and the presence of realistic-looking humans in abstract and bizarre environments that combine futuristic and old-fashioned aesthetics. Shaun Tan has commented on the reason for this process: "I was very dependent on photography for a lot of the drawings, because they're photo-realistic. It's not my favorite style of working, and I didn't feel very confident. The other thing was continuity. When I started, I was drawing everything out of my head by hand, and I was finding that there were accumulating continuity problems—just little things that you notice subconsciously, like the length of a sleeve, how a lapel falls, where the rim of a hat is. The only way to register all of that properly was to photograph a lot of the stuff." == Reception ==

The Arrival won the Best Books for Young Adults, American Library Association, 2008 the *Aurealis Award: Golden Aurealis Short Story Award the Chesley Award for Interior Illustration, 2008, the Ditmar Award for Artwork, == References ==