Shaun Tan Wins Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

"Shaun Tan has reinvented the picture book by creating visually spectacular pictorial narratives with a constant human presence. He uses a variety of means of artistic expression: lead pencil, Indian ink, colored pencil, painting and various print techniques. Shaun Tan sees every book as an experiment in visual and verbal storytelling."

So writes the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize site about the 2011 winner of the award, Australian writer and illustrator Shaun Tan. The prize, which was announced in late March, is worth SEK 5 million.

"As  the UK publisher of his Tales from Outer Suburbia, Eric and coming in April, The Bird King and other sketches, we are also looking forward to his next U.K. visit, when he is a guest of the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August," says Jayne Roscoe of Templar Publishing. In Germany, Tan is published by Carlsen Verlag, like Templar a part of Bonnier Books.