Visualisation of Meaning. “The Lost Soul” by Olga Tokarczuk and Joanna Concejo as an Iconotextual Project

Abstract

The article examines The Lost Soul by Olga Tokarczuk and Joanna Concejo as a picture book, an iconotextual project, and a material object. It demonstrates how the interplay of words, images, typography, page-spread composition, and the haptic properties of the book generate the meanings of loss and recovery of the soul. The 2017 Polish edition is examined in its entirety, from the cover and endpapers to the translucent inserts and the rhythm of page-turning. The study employs qualitative intersemiotic close reading, with the hermeneutics of symbols providing a supplementary interpretive framework. The analysis reveals that the form of the book tells the story of a person becoming disconnected from their inner self and stages this experience. The graph-paper grid conveys the flattening of the world; the translucent paper reveals the overlapping of temporal orders, while the wordless sequences encourage readers to slow down, observe, and wait. The soul’s return signifies the restoration of relationships with memory, place, nature, and other beings, while the protagonist’s ideography becomes a visual record of his transformation.