Tasse Land
Ebba Berg & Alexander Jansson
- Original Title
- Tassemarker
- Published
- Natur & Kultur, Stockholm, September 2019
- Genre
- Picture books
- Pages
- 32
- Tags
- Alexander Jansson, Ebba Berg, Natur & Kultur, Tassemarker
Tasse Land
Ebba Berg & Alexander Jansson
In the picture book Tasse Land, we meet a small person and a big person. The small one is dressed in red. The big one is gone, vanished into the wild, in the wasteland of Tasse Land. The small one searches so much that it almost loses itself.
Tasse Land can be deep in the jungle, far out on the plains, in the deepest darkness, in the deserted outbacks or at the ultimate edge. Back in the days, people used other words when they didn’t dare to mention something that frightened them, to avoid summoning it. Something that was present, both close and far away, in the desolate country. So Tasse Land symbolically represents the unknown landscape that a person, someone crucial in one’s life, can get lost inside and disappear altogether. Someone who might return and be found, but not without a search, in hope and fear.
With intuitive, flowing images, this picture book depicts the journey towards loneliness and back.
- Awards
Winner of the Elsa Beskow Plaque 2020
The jury's motivation:
"In Tassemarker, Alexander Jansson manages to combine photographic realism with beautiful, sketchy illustrations in an incomparable way. He does this in a visual world where we don’t get lost. A red scarf leads us through this difficult journey. The road may be dark, but the expressive illustrations make it relevant.
The illustrations convey feelings that touch us deeply, about a child who loses his security and who is looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found, on paths that are not like the usual ones.
Tassemarker is a story that doesn’t beautify. Anxiety and fear are constantly present. Jansson shapes this well with his detailed and surreal style, where light and shadows want to tell something to the reader. The light and the red scarf give hope and through Jansson’s illustrations we understand that it is possible to find a way out of the land of Tasse."