Dotter of her Father’s Eyes

Winner of the 2012 Costa Biography Award

The judges described the book as: “A strikingly original graphic memoir which links two lives in a highly imaginative way…A gem of a book”.

“Dotter of her Father’s Eyes is doubly enjoyable for writer Mary Talbot’s masterful interweaving of two father-daughter relationships and cartoonist Bryan Talbot’s equally brilliant drawings, which transported me back-and-forth between gritty postwar Britain and the swinging Paris of the ’20s and ’30s. This is one of the best collaborative efforts I’ve seen in the comics medium”.

Joe Sacco author: Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde and The Great War

Part personal history, part biography, Dotter of her Father’s Eyes contrasts two coming of age narratives: that of Lucia, the daughter of James Joyce, and that of author Mary Talbot, daughter of the eminent Joycean scholar James S Atherton. Social expectations and gender politics, thwarted ambitions and personal tragedy are played out against two contrasting historical backgrounds, poignantly evoked by the atmospheric visual storytelling of award winning comic artist and graphic novel pioneer Bryan Talbot. Produced through an intense collaboration seldom seen between writers and artists, Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes is intelligent, funny and sad – a fine addition to the evolving genre of graphic memoir.

Mary adds, “I think what’s been most distinctive about this project is that I haven’t just completed a script and then passed it over to an artist. We’ve been able to work on the book together, with an intensive and ongoing creative interaction that’s usually missing from writer/artist collaborations”.

“A fascinating and original book, which will have wide appeal – not just to fathers and daughters!”

Jennifer Coates – Emeritus Professor of English Language and Linguistics at Roehampton University and Fellow of the English Association

The book is published by Jonathan Cape. Available here. Also available from iTunes.

A Spanish edition was published by La Cúpula, Barcelona, in September 2012 as La niña de sus ojos. A paperback edition (pictured right) appeared in February 2017.

Omnibus, Belgrade, published a Serbian edition in late 2013. In Spring 2014 Wydawnictwo Komiksowe, Warsaw, published a Polish edition. Guangxi Normal University Press published a Simplified Chinese edition in Autumn 2014. It was also published in Turkey in late 2017. NPE published an Italian edtion in January 2020. A Norwegian edition was published by Solum Bokvennen in September 2020.