Shadow Talk: Twenty-Five New Fairy Tales

by Robert Kelly, Emma Polyakov (Illustrator)

These twenty-five delightful tales -- written by the poet and fabulist Robert Kelly, and illustrated with ink drawings by the artist Emma Polyakov -- are filled with wonder and enchantment for all who are young at heart. There are suitably beguiling personages as well: spectral foxes, a telepathic ape and antelope, shadows that speak, an odd djinn, a feline conductor, an umbrella-loving serpent, protean elves, and many other visions of the ultimate reality just beyond sight. A special limited autograph edition of ten of these tales was issued in 2019. That book has been expanded for this first trade edition, adding fifteen additional tales, each with its own illustration. The tales possess such alluring titles as "The Fox and the Other Side," "The Priest's Peculiar Wife," "The Boy in the Camel," "The Leper's Touch," and "The Girl Who Could Change."

164 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2021

About the author

Kelly has published more than fifty books of poetry and prose, including Red Actions: Selected Poems 1960-1993 (1995) and a collection of short fictions, A Transparent Tree (1985). Many were published by the Black Sparrow Press. He also edited the anthology A Controversy of Poets (1965).Kelly was of great help to the Hungryalist group of poets of India during the trial of Malay Roychoudhury,with whom he had correspondence,now archived at Kolkata.

Kelly received the Los Angeles Times First Annual Book Award (1980) for Kill the Messenger Who Brings Bad News and the American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation (1991) for In Time.