Forest Song

Behind the Book

Forest Song is the second instance of an artistic visualisation of the Barkweaver stories by Amenuo Miachieo. The first collaboration took place in 2009 in the book Naga Folk Tales Retold, published by Barkweaver.

For every illustration, Amenuo does a meticulous reading of each story and produces drawings according to his interpretation of the reading. Each illustration is cyclical and is a story in itself. Different episodes from the tale are selected by him, and the end result is the artist's impression of the individual story.

The stories are Naga stories which take place in typical village settings, though some occur in a town setting. They are richly complemented and accentuated by Amenuo's illustrations. Some of the stories have been selected by other publishers to be published internationally.

The page layout has been done by Rokovor Vihienuo at Spearhead Design. In this volume, he has added thumbnails of the illustrations at strategic places in the stories. Barkweaver and Spearhead Design share the mutual objective of harnessing Naga talent and art to bring Naga stories to a wider audience.