By Kara Walker
118 pages; Rizzoli

Famous for the silhouettes that offer wry and biting commentaries on the African-American slave experience, Kara Walker now gives us After the Deluge (Rizzoli), a book that reads like a poem or a film loosely based on the subject of Hurricane Katrina and the "floods to come." Incorporating photos, printed texts, silhouettes, and paintings by artists ranging from Hiëronymus Bosch to Winslow Homer, the book is a vivid and intriguing meditation on water, power, history, violence, nature, the body and the spirit.

— Francine Prose