The Forest

It is an enormous, ancient forest

That has not yet been fully explored.

These lines begin Ricardo Bozzi’s visually breathtaking and deeply emotional picture book, The Forest. Exquisitely illustrated by Violeta Lópiz and Valerio Vidali, the book’s meaning unfolds in the interplay between its lush illustrations of verdant foliage and delicately rendered portraits of human travelers, whose faces appear almost imperceptibly within its pages, embossed as uncolored indentations within the paper itself. This tactile addition draws attention to the physicality of reading and underscores for the reader that this is a story of the body: a universal story that has been told since time out of mind, and one that always ends in loss. Journeying through the forest, Bozzi’s travelers age from childlike wonder to mature determination, arriving at the culmination of Bozzi’s spare, haunting text: “What may lie beyond the forest, no one knows.” Bozzi, Lópiz, and Vidali, aided by the deft translations of Debbie Bibo, have given readers a singular and unforgettable reading experience, one as mysterious, transformative, and poignant as the landscape it evokes.