-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
From the three-time Igantz award-winning artist and author of Big Questions comes afascinating graphic novel retelling of the Greek myth of Prometheus.
Set in a version of modern Central Asia, Tongues is a retelling of the Greek myth of Prometheus. It follows the captive god's friendship with the eagle who carries out his daily sentence of torture and chronicles his pursuit of revenge on the god that has imprisoned him.
Prometheus's story is entwined with that of an East African orphan on an errand of murder, and a young man with a teddy bear strapped to his back, wandering aimlessly into catastrophe (a character readers may recognize from Nilsen's Dogs and Water). The story is set against the backdrop of tensions between rival groups in an oil-rich wilderness.
Tongues is both an adventure story and a meditation on human nature in our present fraught, historical moment.
"With exhilarating imagination, Nilsen charges headlong at big themes of responsibility, fate, mortality, transcendence, and the natural order. The results are stunning." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The whole narrative has a decidedly otherworldly sense to it, a kind of Classics Illustrated run amok, and it's utterly beguiling: throw in a magic cube to complicate the storyline, and while it may not make much sense, it doesn't really have to if the reader suspends disbelief long enough to listen to an eagle trying to make sense of an iPhone. Superb graphic art meets an exceedingly odd tale, and to wonderful ends." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A compellingly enigmatic adventure story exploring the role of personal and cultural mythology in today's fraught historical moment." —Library Journal
"Tongues is an extraordinary reinvention of some of our oldest stories. Nilsen brings these old gods to an electrifying new life, and gives us a new sense of humanity as well, drilling into what we forgot to be afraid of and why we would have made ourselves forget. And the art of comics is reinvented as well in the process. It's as if to tell this story, Nilsen had to remake everything he knew." —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
"Tongues is absolutely astonishing. A psychedelic collision between our most degraded contemporary realities and some of the oldest mythologies known to our species, written with a granular insight into both, drawn with beautiful savagery in a style that at times recalls Moebius but is utterly Nilsen's own. Some passages made me cry, and I didn't want the story to end. This book feels momentous." —Leela Corman, author of Victory Parade
This information about Tongues, Volume 1 was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Anders Nilsen is the award winning author of Big Questions, Dogs and Water and numerous other graphic novels and comics.
If you liked Tongues, Volume 1, try these:
by Caro De Robertis
Published 2025
Perfect for fans of Circe and Black Sun, this bold and subversive feminist retelling of the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros explores the power of queer joy and freedom.
by Ayse Papatya Bucak
Published 2020
A debut story collection of spectacular imaginative range and lyricism from a Pushcart Prize–winning author.
by Patrick Ness
Published 2018
A richly illustrated and lyrical tale, one that asks harrowing questions about power, loyalty, obsession, and the monsters we make of others.
Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
