Fijian artist, Clarence Dass has successfully created a book called Sala Ni Yalo – Path of the Shade.

The book is based on an iTaukei tradition, in which the mourning period and various taboos are lifted 100 days after the death of a loved one.

“So, Sala Ni Yalo started off as a research project for a unit I was studying at USP. It was a unit on thought, philosophy and ethics – and part of the unit involved a research project and instead of doing like an essay, you could do an art project for it. So, I got in touch with my lecturer and I asked him if I could do a comic book and he thought it was a really good idea. So, it started off as a comic book.”

Dass’s love for comics started from an early age and he has been reading and drawing his whole life.

It was only during the COVID-19 lockdown that he decided to create comic books.

He says comic is an untapped story telling narrative and can be used to share some interesting and important stories.

Sala Ni Yalo – Path of the Shade will be released in November by Living The Line, a book production company in America.