Hansel and Gretel: A Nightmare in Eight Scenes by Simon Armitage & Clive Hicks-Jenkins (Signed Hardback)

Winner of the 2020 V&A Illustration Award

Hansel and Gretel - a Nightmare in Eight Scenes is a beautiful clothbound hardback book by poet laureate Simon Armitage in collaboration with artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins. 

Clive Hicks-Jenkins’ work for Hansel & Gretel won the 2020 V&A Illustration Award for Book Illustration.

Armitage’s extended (and not child-friendly) narrative poem uses the well-known framework of the Brothers Grimm tale but gives us a new contemporary interpretation and focus. This is a darker, glittering Hansel & Gretel fairy story for the 21st century, of refugees, bombed villages, homelessness, a landscape where nothing is quite as it seems, but of humanity, humour and hope too. 

The powerful story is illustrated by the superb Hicks-Jenkins. His compelling Hansel & Gretel characters have appeared as prints and as a toy theatre for Benjamin Pollock's Toyshop. They are re-imagined here using the imagery of the toy box of mid-century wooden puppets, villages and building blocks in creating a unique, contemporary fairytale landscape.