That he chooses to present his protagonist as a language-challenged, alien-eyed insect with a hard outer shell and multiple, multi-tasking arms speaks volumes. In this modern parable for the plight of necessary-yet-unwelcomed foreign workers worldwide, Tan explicitly exposes their diminished status. Tok Tok Tok!” But even as all hope appears to be lost, Tan delivers an unexpected zinger of a high-flying ending. No money.” Alone, he climbs the building’s stairs: “Cicada go to top of tall building. Tok Tok Tok!” He abandons his cubicle with nothing to show for his loyal efforts: “No work. He doesn’t make enough to afford rent and lives in a sliver of “office wall space.” He’s bullied, harassed, even kicked to the ground by colleagues who attack without reason.Īnd then Cicada finally retires: “No party. He’s been labeled “not human” by the human resources department, which means he’s banned from using the company bathroom (“Human resources say cicada not human. He’s been a data entry clerk without a single sick day, making no mistakes, staying late to finish his co-workers’ incomplete work, and yet 17 years have passed without a promotion. His gray suit can’t disguise his differences in a gray office filled with similarly gray-suited men (and perhaps one woman). His antihero is a short, squat green cicada for whom English is clearly not a first language.

More than a decade later, Tan returns to the immigrant experience with Cicada, a darker, sobering story that highlights the all-too-familiar treatment of seemingly expendable, undervalued foreign workers. A wordless, heart-pulling, graphically extraordinary chronicle of an immigration experience – loss, estrangement, tenacity, hope – that could happen anywhere in the world, The Arrival continues to resonate as borders shift, governments collapse, and scattered populations seek sanctuary. What initially brought him to international acclaim was the publication of The Arrival in 2006 (2007 in the U.S.). In 2011, author/artist/filmmaker Shaun Tan won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and received an Oscar for the animated adaptation of his book The Lost Thing.

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