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Art Literary

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Time's Breath: An Odyssey in Words and Pictures

ISBN: 9798998560002
Binding: Hardcover
Author: Deborah Brown English
Pages: 264
Trim: 8.5 x 10.25 inches
Published: 9/16/2025

A HIDDEN BOOK. A FIERY SHIPWRECK. A LOST ISLAND.

In a lighthouse off the coast of Norway, a book is found within the debris of a small boat. It contains pictures and stories, written in several hands. Together, they tell the tale of a volcanic island in the North Atlantic called Tokket Fall, lost a century before, and of the community that lived there—people, animals, and mythical beings.

Its story told through over one hundred original drawings and paintings in addition to vibrant writing, this extraordinary novel explores the philosophy, tragedy, and humor of what is contained in our collective history and what we choose to hand down to one another. It reminds us that how we live in our world says much about who we are.



Deborah Brown English grew up on Maryland's Upper Eastern Shore, and originally intended to be a fiction writer, studying English and creative writing at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. She graduated from MICA with honors in 1985, and her work has been exhibited in Maryland at Steven Scott Gallery, Paper Rock Scissors, the Annual Gala Show of the Choral Arts Society of Baltimore, the Academy Museum, and at the former Sales and Rental Gallery at the Baltimore Museum of Art; as well as in galleries in Pennsylvania and Nebraska. She and her husband, Philip, live in Baltimore and are known together for their joint collecting and support of the arts.

"A daringly innovative book that pairs the author's fables (think José Saramago or Robert Louis Stevenson) with her own paintings and drawings (J. M. W. Turner crossed with N. C. Wyeth). A dialectic in which the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts. Powerful stuff!" — John Benditt, author of The Boatmaker

"A born storyteller, Deborah English is equally masterful at creating through words and paint a world with its own exotic history and atmosphere. This is a dark, funny, astoundingly rich graphic novel full of dramatic surprises. The author/artist creates a time-defying fairy tale, and she does it with such conviction, invention, and seemingly thorough research that it sings true and on key." — Barry Nemett, Professor of Drawing & Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art

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