The Awe-Fright of the Earth
The second volume of poems and essays written by Nóra Ugron, published at MaggaBooks, in 2025.
The book is divided into six chapters that explore the author’s struggles and hardships, as well as her journey toward the recognition of the world.
A collaboration with Nóra for the book’s cover design and chapter illustrations. It contains writing that looks at the world with wonder, curiosity, rebellion, fear, anger, and hope. It brings together many feminist and queer ideas, anti-speciesist perspectives, and a political/activist approach. It is a book that helps you see beyond barriers and urges you toward a revolution.
Disappearances and Defragmentations
Chapter I It consists of a collection of poems about non-human animals, the world, and hope. For this book, I drew a fir tree with a few curious crows perched on its branches.
Chapter II consists of three short stories and essays about love and loss. Here, I have illustrated a hawthorn bush teeming with sparrows.
All the illustrations are in black and white, created with digital pencil strokes and, in some places, watercolor ones.
Devisare (Undreaming)
Chapter III It consists of poems about love, climate change, and critiques of capitalism. It is a magical chapter, in which I illustrated an owl sleeping on the branches of a tree at night, taking a brief respite from the world around her.
Dislocalizări și Disfurie (Dislocations and Disfury)
Chapter IV depicts a section of a pine forest, with a northern jay flying among the trees. This chapter explores language and speech, belonging and self-representation, from the perspective of a writer-activist. It also includes essays on the Hungarian community and the microaggressions the writer has encountered.
Chapter V is a short collection of profound poems about writing and what it means to be different—both as a human and a non-human being—and about the shortcomings and losses we encounter as sentient beings lacking agency. Here, the illustration is a close-up of a group of birch trees, a gaze turned back toward the world through the stumps of branches resembling eyes.
Disdestruction
Quote from ”Staying Silent Creates Consensus for Genocide” at pp. 165-167:
"Staying Silent Creates Consensus for Genocide
colonizers wash their hands
in blood
...
let’s fight back
dream and shout
speak up and write
protest
stop the genocide!
land back!
Free Palestine
Free Palestine!"
Chapter VI is a revolt against the ethnic cleansing and genocide perpetrated by the israelis against the Palestinians. It is about war, murder, and visible, accepted atrocities, which ultimately leave room for hope—that these crimes will be acknowledged, and that the Palestinians’ lands will be returned to them. It is a cry of solidarity, encouragement, and grief.
For this, I drew an old olive tree that still has a few green branches. The olive tree is a symbol of Palestine and one of the crops that Israel has aggressively destroyed.
A few photos of the physical book, along with postcards featuring illustrations from the volume and quotes from the poems.
On the inside front cover, I also drew a portrait of Nóra.
Write, p. 147 (Quote translated by me)
I don't want to write about
I want to write together-with
you urge me to write
because you urge me to love
and my love for the world
is to write
To promote the book, we also created a series of posts and posters for the launch, which took place first in Bucharest and then in Cluj-Napoca.