Arta Books is committed to bringing narratives, ideas and experiences from all corners of the world to enrich our experience of humanity.
Arta Books publishes stories of remarkable people from different times and different places. In July 2023 we introduced the first of our Artist’s Vision Series with LHARI, profiling the work of Karma Tshering Wangchuk from Bhutan.
The Arta Books community of readers and storytellers are passionate and curious about people, their lives, their experience of other cultures, their histories and most importantly the sharing of their unique and fascinating tales.
Arta Books specialises in highlighting stories from around the world and building communities to ensure stories can be read widely. Translation itself is a specialised skill and the Arta Books team relishes the opportunity to work with translators and scholars, discussing subtle nuance in language and meaning.
LHARI
Karma Wangchuk
LHARI is the first book in our series of Artist’s Vision publications. We introduce the beauty and creative energy of Bhutan through the eyes of Karma Tshering Wangchuk, aka Lhari, and his ongoing and unparalleled portrait of people, culture and Bhutanese street fashion. The book has developed through friendship and connection, with international partners, always with Bhutan at its heart.
The book takes you through a collection of Lhari’s existing & largely unseen photographs and drawings – a deep dive into Bhutanese street fashion, and a newly made body of work, a documentary fashion story of sorts, photographed in Paro over a few days early in summer & before the arrival of the monsoons, with Bhutanese model Tandin Lham and a young Bhutanese team. For the Paro Shoot Lhari sourced treasures from private collections and the best of local artisans with a radical eye, elevating & celebrating these archival garments.
You’ll find an interview with Lhari weaving through these pages, telling his story & the forces that travel with him.
First edition: July 2023
Pages: 100
Dimensions: 165 mm * 239 mm
Binding: Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-0-6452136-2-1
BOOK OF EXODUS
Ali Amiri
Ali Amiri is one of the 120,000 men, women and children who were evacuated from Kabul airport in August 2021 as the government of Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. “Book of Exodus” is a narrative of the trauma of this event and the untold story of horror felt by those trying to escape.
This book addresses the downfall of the Ashraf Ghani administration, the chaotic and brutal evacuation from Kabul, the fear and despondency of the cultural elites and the destruction of their dreams and future.
Ali Amiri has rebuilt his life in Sydney, Australia; this is his first book published in English. Soon to be translated into Turkish, this will be the first of Arta’s translated publications.
Readers copy: November 2022
Pages: 190
Dimensions: 6in x 9in
Binding: Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-0-6452136-1-4
PROZAC IS MY BEST FRIEND
Marlo McClintock
“Prozac is my Best Friend” is a body of work consisting of 70 extraordinary drawings and small sculptures by the Sydney-based artist Marlo McClintock. Marlo created these works as a 17-year-old and says “Prozac is my Best Friend is simply an expression of what I assume to be some of the universal aspects of what being a human being entails. My work is not a contemporary study of the introspective teenage mind, nor a critique of the mass distribution of antidepressants to teenagers; it is just how I felt at one time depicted in simplified forms of what I considered badly drawn drawings.”
First edition: March 2021
Second edition: December 2022
Pages: 70
Dimensions: 7in x 10in
Binding: Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-0-6452136-0-7
BLANCHE VIOLET MAHER
Julia Booth
“Blanche Violet Maher: Landscapes and Portraits, Recipes and Formulas” is a remarkable collection of work from Late-Victorian era female photographer Blanche Violet Maher, who lived in rural New South Wales, Australia. Blanche was twenty when she started taking photographs, working with a combination of dry plates and wet collodion plates, and, from 1900, with film.
Blanche’s work from 1894 - 1920 is previously unseen and this first edition of the book is a limited edition. As well as her photographs, the book includes Blanche’s notebook of developing formulas, recipes and knitting patterns.
First edition: November 2020
Second edition: July 2022
Pages: 82
Dimensions: 12in x 15in
Binding: Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-0-6468268-3-7