Books published by Ponent Mon Ltd

Reads from right to left in the traditional manga format.

Reads from right to left in the traditional manga fashion.

Kyoto, 1966. The young Hamaguchi is working for a textile manufacturer whilst dreaming of becoming an artist, when an incident at the zoo forces his hand. He moves to Tokyo at the invitation of an old school friend who also arranges an ''interview'' at the studios of the famous mangaka, Shiro Kondo. Here he discovers both the long hours of meeting studio deadlines along with the nightlife and artistic haunts of the capital. For the first time ever, Taniguchi recalls his beginnings in manga and his youth spent in Tokyo in the ''60s. It is a magnificent account of his apprenticeship where all the finesse and elegance of the creator are united to illustrate those first emotions of adulthood. These reflections are made all the more poignant since his sad death on February 11th 2017 aged just 69.

How do you say ''thank you'' and ''goodbye'' to a woman who has been domineering and difficult her whole life? Especially when that woman is your mother! Yukari had long struggled in a chaotic love-hate relationship with her mother Chieko, so when her mother is diagnosed with advanced stage pancreatic cancer with just months to live, she is faced with a difficult situation. Takinami honestly recounts the turmoil created by this announcement from her sister Nao without ever descending into pathos. At first she thinks of the practical - where should her mother be, who''s going to look after her, how can I with my work and my child? Then slowly she starts to face the fact of losing this energetic woman who had never even caught a cold to her memory! After years marked by difficult communication, will they now manage to overcome their conflicts and say what s truly in their hearts before it''s too late?

Charlotte Salomon was a young Jewish artist from a prosperous family whose mother committed suicide when she was just nine years old. She attended the School for Pure and Applied Arts until 1938 when the increasing antisemitic policies caused her to escape to the south of France to live with her grandparents. It was not the best of times. In 1941, now living alone she began painting what became over 1000 gouaches which she edited and added captions and overlays to create her life''s work. In 1943 she handed the work over to the local doctor in a large suitcase with the wish that he ''Keep this safe, it is my whole life.'' By September that year she had married another German Jewish refugee, Alexander Nagler, and the two of them were arrested and she was transported to Auschwitz to the gas chambers when five months pregnant.

Jiro Taniguchi returns with this delightful and insightful tale of life in a Japan long forgotten. Inspired by an historical figure, Tadataka Ino (1745 - 1818), Taniguchi invites us to join this unnamed but appealing and picturesque figure as he strolls through the various districts of Edo, the ancient Tokyo, with its thousand little pleasures. Now retired from business he surveys, measures, draws and takes notes whilst giving free rein to his taste for simple poetry and his inexhaustible capacity for wonder.

Taniguchi portrays the Venice of today in a most deserving light.