A photo of Baek Heena from the homepage of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.
SEOUL, April 1 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean author and illustrator Baek Heena has won the 2020 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the world’s largest children’s book award.
“With exquisite feeling for materials, looks and gestures, Baek Heena’s filmic picture books stage stories about solitude and solidarity,” a jury of the award said in a statement released on its website Tuesday (Swedish time).
“In her evocative miniature worlds, cloud bread and sorbet moons, animals, bath fairies and people converge. Her work is a doorway to the marvelous: sensuous, dizzying and sharp,” it said.
Baek is the first South Korean author to win the prize, established by the Swedish government in 2002 to honor the Swedish children’s author Astrid Lindgren, who wrote “Pippi Longstocking” (1945).
The annual winner is given prize money of US$500,000.
This year, 240 writers from 67 countries competed for the award.
Baek, one of the most renowned picture book artists in South Korea, has published 13 books so far, including the best-selling “Cloud Bread” (2004).
The award-presenting ceremony of this year’s Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was originally slated for June 1 in Stockholm, but it has been put off indefinitely due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
(Yonhap)
