Description

With drawings by Selçuk Demirel

The great John Berger, art critic, novelist and long-time smoker, joins forces again with Turkish writer and illustrator Selçuk Demirel in an unexpected pictorial essay.

‘Once upon a time, men, women and (secretly) children smoked.’

This charming pictorial essay reflects on the cultural implications of smoking, and suggests, through a series of brilliantly inventive illustrations, that society’s attitude to smoke is both paradoxical and intolerant. It portrays a world in which smokers, banished from public places, must encounter one another as outlaws. Meanwhile, car exhausts and factory chimneys continue to pollute the atmosphere.

Smoke is a beautifully illustrated prose poem that lingers in the mind.