Shaun Tan wins Astrid Lindgren prize
World's richest children's literature award goes to Australian author-illustrator, described as a 'masterly visual storyteller'
Shaun Tan was awarded the Astrid Lindgren prize for being 'a masterly visual storyteller'. Photograph: Martin Argles for the GuardianThe Australian author-illustrator Shaun Tan is the winner of this year's Astrid Lindgren prize – the richest children's literature prize in the world, with a purse of 5m kroner (£490,000).
Tan is the second Australian to be awarded the prize in its nine-year history, following Sonya Hartnett's win in 2008.
The phone call informing Tan of his win was broadcast live on the internet and to an audience at the Bologna children's book fair. Tan's response was characteristically guarded: "OK, OK, thanks very much. That's amazing. I'm going to have to take a little time to get used to it."
Tan has illustrated more than 20 books including The Rabbits, The Red Tree, The Arrival, Eric and, most recently, Tales from Outer Suburbia, which was hailed in the Guardian as possibly "the most beautiful book you'll see all year". At this year's Academy Awards, he won the Oscar for best animated short film for The Lost Thing, based on his book of the same title.
The Astrid Lindgren prize was set up in 2002 by the Swedish government to honour writers, illustrators and story-tellers working in the spirit of Lindgren, whose best-known creation is Pippi Longstocking. Maurice Sendak and Philip Pullman are among the previous winners of the prize, which focuses on work with "a profound respect for democratic values and human rights".
Tan, the son of an architect who grew up in Perth, is not afraid to put dark subjects into his books. Depression, environmental destruction and the loneliness of the immigrant are among the issues he has tackled in what he describes as "illustrated modern fables".
In a Guardian interview, he said: "All fiction is false; what makes it convincing is that it runs alongside the truth. Drawing a good picture is like telling a really good lie – the key is in the incidental detail."
Recent Comments