Skip to Main Content
Bridwell|Art Library

Tree of Codes: Home

Artists' Books
Tree of Codes
Jonathan Safran Foer
Art Library Rare Books Collection PS3606.O38 T74 2010 box 13.1

"With a different die-cut on every page, Tree of Codes explores previously unchartered literary territory. Initially deemed impossible to make, the book is a first — as much a sculptural object as it is a work of masterful storytelling. Tree of Codes is the story of an enormous last day of life — as one character's life is chased to extinction, Foer multi-layers the story with immense, anxious, at times disorientating imagery, crossing both a sense of time and place, making the story of one person's last day everyone's story. Inspired to exhume a new story from an existing text, Jonathan Safran Foer has taken his 'favorite' book, The Street of Crocodiles by Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz, and used it as a canvas, cutting into and out of the pages, to arrive at an original new story …"—Publisher description.

The front cover of Tree of Codes The Tree of Codes on its side and fanned open