Publishing · 2025
The Layers of Life
Fifteen stories from a wounded, curious and slightly absurd world — and one visual language that had to work in two directions.
Context
Two editions, one atmosphere
The Layers of Life is a collection of short fiction published simultaneously in English and Persian (چرکنویس). The two editions had to feel like the same book without either language being treated as a translation of the other.
That meant designing the atmosphere first and the typography twice — a left-to-right Latin setting and a right-to-left Persian setting, each composed on its own terms, sharing one image system.
English and Persian editions
The system
A plate for every story
Each of the stories carries its own full-page plate: a single monochrome scene built around one light source. Read in sequence the plates form their own narrative — doorway, window, staircase, horizon, threshold.
Chapter openers use the plate number and running time rather than a title, so the reader enters each story without a summary.
Fifteen stories from a wounded, curious, and slightly absurd world.
Cover line
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