I Ate the Whole World to Find You

Rachel Ang

‘Rachel Ang’s I Ate the Whole World to Find You combines my two favourite flavours: strange and evocative. They draw a beautifully reverberating world that transcends language so that we can see the splendour of it all anew. This collection is a hallucination, a holy text, an experience to return to again and again.’

Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch

‘I devoured this book in one voracious go. It was explosive, blunt, biting, beautiful, and at times awful in the way those we most love can be. The characters are hard on themselves and soft on others, or tender on the inside and hard outside. Ang’s bold and brave illustrations are so expressive, their bodies so corporeal, their faces so full of inner feeling. And they’re so funny! I’ve never read a graphic novel quite like this one.’

Alice Pung, author of One Hundred Days

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‘A strange and intuitive and hilarious book from a storyteller with a new kind of vision, for comics and people. Rachel Ang is a virtuoso mapper of hearts and brains and feelings, and this is the best kind of psychologically resonant fiction because it knows we don’t really know anything and then fully commits to exploring it anyway. It investigates the untouchable stuff at the centre of every person, and then lays out its findings in the most inventive and thoughtful ways.’

Ronnie Scott, author of Shirley

‘I have always loved Rachel’s beautiful art and deeply nuanced and emotionally charged stories. I Ate The Whole World To Find You perfectly captures the intimacy of what it feels like to live and love with uncertainty and an open heart. Rachel is a master storyteller of striking clarity who breathes new life into comic literary fiction.’

Mandy Ord, author of Bulk Nuts

‘This is a breathtaking study of the body: its hunger, its hurt, its limits, and its infinite poetic potential. Deeply moving, mysterious, and magical stories to dwell in and savour.’

Myfanwy Jones, author of Cool Water

‘I Ate the Whole World to Find You is a mesmeric fever dream deadset on breaking your heart. Rachel Ang’s agile, scratchy line renders the surreal feeling of being alive like no other living artist. I was inspired and dumbfounded and left writhing and speaking in tongues. koobfdgrf3efsihtdedafjksdfjkladsfklsdfkla;skdlr read this book!!!!’

Eloise Grills, author of big beautiful female theory

‘In living ink, Rachel Ang illustrates the umbilical connections between memory and body, vulnerability and resilience, childhood and womanhood. These vignettes are an emotional chiaroscuro: moody, bold, and rippling with light.’

Laura Elizabeth Woollett, author of West Girls

‘Through visceral line work, and masterful composition, these compelling stories vividly wrestle in the muck of complex emotions, relationships, and trauma. Each piece unearths subterranean fault lines of harm, expectations, and shame, while shimmering with the longing for joy, belonging, safety, and freedom.’

Sarah Firth, author of Eventually Everything Connects

‘I Ate the Whole World to Find You is a mesmerising collection of dancing lights and shadows, sometimes perplexing and unsettling, always beautiful. Their characters navigate attraction, old hurts, and the eternal dilemma of having a body — ushered with the utmost care by Rachel Ang’s gestural, sensual cartooning.’

Lee Lai, author of Stone Fruit

‘Here are stories of the body’s darkest moments and profoundest ecstasies, bound up in a lush, strange, genre-defying collection. I adored this book.’

Carmen Maria Machado, author of In the Dream House

Introducing a bold new voice — one of the most exciting short-story writers working in comics today.

A coworker-turned-prospective-lover confesses a hard-to-swallow fetish. A train ride fantastically goes off the rails. Cousins revisit summer holiday bliss — or was it really horror? Exes fumble an attempt to reconnect over a dip in the pool. And an expectant mother slips into uncharted territory as she enters a communion more pure than language can accommodate.

I Ate the Whole World to Find You maps the topography of trauma, treasures, and loss imposed onto the body of Jenny, a twenty-something-going-on-thirty-something partial hot mess who’s making her way more firmly into adulthood. As she navigates friendship, family, and romantic relationships, will her inability to communicate destroy her, or ultimately be her rebirth?

Set against an exquisitely lush Australian backdrop, Rachel Ang’s pencils are fluid yet scratchy, precise and evocative, bringing to life the inner and external world of Jenny with stunning realism and gushing imagination. Sprinkled with speculative fiction and fantasy, this radiant debut collection establishes Ang as a storyteller of range and power.

Rachel Yoder, author of Nightbitch

Alice Pung, author of One Hundred Days

View all reviews

Ronnie Scott, author of Shirley

Mandy Ord, author of Bulk Nuts

‘This is a breathtaking study of the body: its hunger, its hurt, its limits, and its infinite poetic potential. Deeply moving, mysterious, and magical stories to dwell in and savour.’

Myfanwy Jones, author of Cool Water

Eloise Grills, author of big beautiful female theory

Laura Elizabeth Woollett, author of West Girls

Sarah Firth, author of Eventually Everything Connects

Lee Lai, author of Stone Fruit

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 222mm × 156mm

Extent:316pp

ISBN (13):9781761380884

RRP:$39.99

Pub date:1 Apr 2025

Rights Held: ANZ

High-res cover:Download Image

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Rachel Ang

Rachel Ang is an artist and writer working on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne, Australia). Their work has been published by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and kuš! Rachel’s first book Swimsuit was published by Glom Press in 2018, and they were a contributor to the Eisner Award–winning anthology Drawing Power: women’s stories of sexual violence, harassment, and survival in 2019. Rachel still lives in their hometown, where they draw comics and work in architecture.

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We publish books that matter — narrative and literary nonfiction on important topics, and the best of local, international, and translated fiction.

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