Relentlessly original & brilliantly hybrid,Monster Portraitsinvestigates the concept of the monstrous through a mesmerizing combination of words & images. An uncanny & imaginativeautobiography of otherness, it offers the fictional record of a writer in the realms of the fantastic shot through with the memories of a pair ofSomali-Americanchildren growing up in the1980s. Operating under the sign of two—texts & drawings, brother & sister, black & white, extraordinary & everyday—Monster Portraitsmultiplies, disintegrates, & blends, inviting the reader to find the danger in the banal, the beautiful in the grotesque. Accumulating into a breathless journey & groundbreaking study, these brief fictions & sketches claimthe monsteras a fragmentary vastness: not the sum but the derangement of its parts.Del Samatar’sdrawings conjure beings who drag worlds in their wake.World Fantasy Award-winning authorSofia Samatarresponds with allusive, critical, & ecstatic meditations. Together they have createda secret history of the mixed-race child, a guide to the beasts of an unknown mythos, & a dreamer’s iconography. Themonstrousnever looked so simultaneously haunting & familiar.Del Samatarholds a BA in Fine Arts from Rutgers University.SOFIA SAMATARis the author of the novelsA Stranger in Olondria&The Winged Histories, & the short story collection,Tender.Sofia’swork has received the William L. Crawford Award, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, the British Fantasy Award, & the World Fantasy Award. She has also been a finalist for the Locus Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, & the Italo Calvino Prize. Her work has appeared in several year’s-best anthologies, includingThe Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy.Sofiaholds a PhD in African Languages & Literature from U. of Wisconsin-Madison…www.sofiasamatar.com