I’m inviting people to talk about that one book that they feel others should read. This isn’t about promoting a friend’s book or the latest bestseller, this is about celebrating those truly special books, those pieces of wonder that leave their mark. Today, Michelle Flatley is talking about The Arrival by Shaun Tan.

I have spent my whole life leaving places, cities, towns and countries, so perhaps that is why I am drawn to stories that explore notions of belonging. My father was in the army and as a child I moved house more than twenty times. I don’t remember the place where I was born. I am rootless. I don’t come from anywhere. I come from everywhere.

One of the most powerful stories I have ever experienced about what it’s like to be a stranger in a ‘foreign’ land is Shaun Tan’s, The Arrival. I use the word ‘experienced’ because Tan’s book is a silent graphic novel. There are no words and the story is conveyed entirely through pictures. It’s more a novel, rather than a picture book and is a beautiful book full of alien landscapes, strange creatures and unfamiliar objects.

Tan’s book is extraordinary. Tan portrays a frightening and sinister world where people are unable to communicate with words. Pictures, signs and gestures dominate. It is an emotional narrative that follows the journey of an immigrant who has left his wife and child behind and seeks a new life in a bewildering country where airships fill the sky and everyone is a refugee.

A book with no words is an ambitious undertaking, but Tan’s work is testament to the power of pictures to evoke an emotional response. The first time I saw this book was a defining moment for me. In Tan’s book there is an illustration of a flying ship, in a strange city dominated by a foreign script. Suddenly, I remembered being seven years old, waking up on a boat. My mother told me we were going to Germany. My father had already left and was stationed in another foreign place and would be joining us later. We arrived. The other children were speaking German. Fear swallowed me up. Always I was an outsider. Always we were leaving. Always we were arriving somewhere new and strange. My father was away for months and we listened to the messages he sent us on the radio. My father was always leaving too.

Shortly after reading the book, I was offered two jobs. One was teaching English to immigrants and one was teaching English in a prison. I took the job teaching immigrants. I taught women from many different countries. I recognised their fear, their struggles to belong in a foreign place.

Tan’s book is a special one, not least because the illustrations are remarkable in their detail. It is an imaginative feat of storytelling that will make you question the significance of words. The Arrival is a book that allows the reader, the viewer, to fill in the gaps. Everyone can identify with the fear of being alone, finding somewhere strange and not belonging. If you’ve never experienced a book without words, this is one that will startle and delight.

About Michelle Flatley:

Michelle Flatley is the author of My Beautiful England. She has worked as a journalist and a community artist and now teaches English to Speakers of Other Languages. She lives in Lancashire with her husband and three children and refuses to move house.

Set in Burnley, My Beautiful England is the story of three female immigrants. Su, a Thai bride who came to England after the tsunami, Samina, who came from Pakistan and feels trapped in an arranged marriage, and Lenka, who is hiding from her Polish husband and living in a women’s refuge with her daughter.

All three women have different problems, yet their lives thread together when they meet at the Language Centre, each with resolve to overcome their language difficulties and becoming ‘English’. What is wonderful within this novel is the attention to detail in the development of the women. They do not blend into one, the language choices differ with each voice, the sparseness of language and the control of the slow unravel speak of confidence.

Flatley’s writing is elegant, it is full of heart, as she tackles ignorance, prejudice, viciousness and isolation. She makes us look at society, at our beautiful England. The characterisation is beautifully drawn, the growth and strength of the woman is shown through a sense of sisterhood. This is a stunning story of hope, friendship and personal growth.