In his rundown “Book covers designs of the year 2023” for Creative Review, Mark Sinclair writes:
No stranger to great book covers, Na Kim has managed to design one that almost begs to be touched with the back of your hand, just to test its temperature. Sweltering colours and a blurry haze that’s just starting to obstruct the type make for a fantastic, sensorial design.
Portrait plays the leading part calmly but with determination. Berton Hasebe’s distillation of French Renaissance forms with sharp, triangular (“Latin”) serifs is here cast in a single big size. Kim gives it enough space to unfold its enigmatic effect. Portrait’s beautiful W that’s formed from two overlapping V’s takes the center stage at the top.
Fiona McFarlane’s “many-voiced, many-sided story of a boy lost in colonial Australia” was first published in Australia by Allen and Unwin in October 2022. This is the American edition by Farrar, Straus and Giroux from February 2023.