Shaun Tan wins the Swedish "Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award"

Just announced at Bologna Children's Book Fair 2011:


Another huge congratulations to Shaun Tan for winning the Swedish Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, only two weeks after receiving an Oscar for his animation The Lost Thing. 


The Astrid Lindgren Award is named after a Swedish author, publisher and human rights advocate, and is given by the Swedish Arts Council each year to honour a writer whose body of work has made an 'outstanding contribution to children's literature'. 


The literary prize is the largest to be given in the field of children's and young adult fiction. 



"The jury’s citation reads:

Shaun Tan is a masterly visual storyteller, pointing the way ahead to new possibilities for picture books. His pictorial worlds constitute a separate universe where nothing is self-evident and anything is possible. Memories of childhood and adolescence are fixed reference points, but the pictorial narrative is universal and touches everyone, regardless of age.

Behind a wealth of minutely detailed pictures, where civilization is criticized and history depicted through symbolism, there is a palpable warmth. People are always present, and Shaun Tan portrays both our searching and our alienation. He combines brilliant, magical narrative skill with deep humanism."
(excerpt taken from The Astrid Lindgren Award website).


Read more about Shaun's achievements on the following news websites:
Sydney Morning Herald
The Australian
ABC News
The Guardian