Shaun Tan’s The Arrival continues to confound genre definitions — a wordless 128-page graphic novel that retells the journey of Tan’s father to Australia in an entirely reimagined setting inhabited by strange creatures and half-recognizable social customs. It has been published as a children’s book because that’s where picture books get placed in the publishing industry but it’s clearly not for children (although there’s nothing in it to stop children enjoying it). It’s a fantasy book or maybe a science fiction book that happens to be drawn within the realist tradition. Although the objects, the statues, the local flora and fauna are all alien to anything that has ever existed on Earth, it is still a palpable version of our world.

The Arrival may confuse marketing departments, but it keeps winning awards. This time it’s the NSW Premier’s Literary Award in two categories including Book of the Year.

Buy. This. Book.