Fidel and the Cypress is a book about the states of mind, the beauty of death, and a child who perceives it simple way. About looking for our lost ones in others. It is a story of a quest in which strangers become closest to us, and those we know disappear. The book is for everyone who has experienced longing, no matter for whom or what – a cypress, a lake, father, distant lands, or sunrise.
Ani can live only with Fidel. But Fidel is dead, and life has to continue. The story tells about the child's efforts to adapt to the changed reality. It is a journey from a gloomy apartment and day-to-day boredom into a meadow, green from morning till evening, cypress alleys, and candied fruit biscotti for breakfast. It is a quest to rediscover the lost loved one in the mountains, lakes, trees, doughnuts. Fidel and the Cypress, both textually and visually, is the little person's journey into light: until the everyday anxious blue becomes a refreshing, nurturing, homey cypress green.
‘I wrote this book as a pretext for people to talk to one another. About light and darkness, the beauty of the world, mums and dads; not only about the most beautiful feelings but about all kinds of feelings and, ultimately, about death. I see this book in the hands of parents snuggled up with their kids. Or in the hands of friends sitting close together. Later on, when working with Ugnė, we had many discussions about the moderate dosage of words and images. We wanted to preserve space and silence on every page, emphasizing internal states and their visual presentation. We decided to create a book which you would open and feel how life continues,’ says the author Dovilė Zavedskaitė.While creating illustrations for Fidel and the Cypress, the artist, Ugnė Rudinskaitė, continued her friendship with literature that transcends age boundaries: ‘I am immersed in books that have no age boundaries. I wrote my master’s thesis on so-called crossover literature, concentrating on the flow of image and text, their connection, and their impact. For me, the very feeling of the book is always essential. I think a lot about its power to connect and bring people together, about the importance of communication and dialogue.’
