Destiny

About this book

A young woman's life unfolds through poverty, desire, chance encounters and decisions she cannot reverse. No narrator explains what is happening. Faces, rooms and streets carry the story in a succession of dark prints.

Otto Nückel's Destiny belongs to the early tradition of wordless novels, composed in images cut from lead plates. Its stark contrasts give ordinary hardship the weight of tragedy. A glance between strangers or a figure alone at a window can tell an entire chapter. The visual storytelling rewards slow attention: compassion has to emerge from the images and the reader’s own response.