Women in Translation: Children's writers and illustrators
For our last post on the Women in Translation month, the Book Office will now spotlight a few French women who write and/or draw stories for children, and who have recently been published in English. You'll also notice that we had or will have the pleasure to work with all of them for the South Ken Kids Festival, which will be returning in less than three months' time - hopefully this post
will get you excited for this year's edition! Aurélie Guillerey:
Aurélie Guillerey has enjoyed drawing ever since she was a little girl. She describes herself a solitary girl, a lone child until she was 7 and so one that would spend her days with her pencils and crayons in her hands. Her studies first took her to the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, where her passion for drawing blossomed; back in high school, she had envisaged a career as a fashion designer. In the end, it was the the opportunity to create stories, settings, and characters that really drew her to children’s books.
Guillerey’s drawings are quite striking at first sight, because of the deep saturated colours she favours. At the same time, she prefers to be thrifty and smart when using space, avoiding overcrowded pages. Combined with her signature grainy black shading, all of these traits give her books a clear and fluid quality, as colours and characters are skillfully contrasted and complemented. Despite not being particularly technophile, Aurélie Guillerey distinguishes herself by using graphics tablets rather than the traditional pencils and crayons to produce her drawings. However, she still keeps a booklet with her at all times to put down any ideas and sketches that come to her!
Working as an illustrator for children's writers, Aurélie Guillerey has been translated in English by several different publishers:
Children are Naughty, Vincent Cuvellier (Flying Eye Books)
Worms, Bernard Friot (Kids Can Press)
Dorothée de Monfreid:
Dorothée de Monfreid studied at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs before starting out as a graphic designer, and focusing more on drawing and writing. Grégoire Solotareff, a renowned French children’s writer and illustrator, was the man who convinced her to embrace the career path that is hers today. De Monfreid admired Solotareff as an artist, and he in return helped her make her first steps by bringing her into the children’s publishing giant L’Ecole des Loisirs. Since then, she has written and illustrated (she insists on doing everything herself) dozens of books. This year, she will be participating in a series of workshops for the South Ken Kids Festival. And here’s a fun fact: she is a proficient ukelele player!
De Monfreid says she dislikes being labeled as a “children’s writer”, and is critical in general of those who insist too strongly on distinguishing her work and other “grown-up” artists. She confesses that she would have liked working as a filmmaker, or in radio; and her work is very much inspired by other forms of art like the cinema or comics (she contributed to a now-defunct comics magazine with illustrators like Riad Sattouf). Her books in general feature very expressive animal characters and close friendships. De Monfreid also admits that she has a fondness for characters who defy authority, especially when they do it in tightly-knit groups.
Dorothée de Monfreid is published in English, by Random House and more recently by Gecko Press:
I'd Really Like To Eat A Child/ I Really Want To Eat A Child, Sylvaine Donnio (Random House Kids)
A Day With Dogs (Gecko Press)
Delphine Perret:
Delphine Perret also first studied to become a graphic designer, then moved on to the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg. There she discovered the art of narrative technique, to which she took a real liking, eventually drawing her to writing stories for children. In 2008, she co-founded the Le Bocal gallery, in which ten different artists work on illustrations, graphic design, and comics. As well as being the author-illustrator of more than a dozen books (translated in several languages), she has illustrated many other stories by different writers.
Perret’s stories and characters can be described as being capable of both amusing silliness and genuinely poignant moments. Little anecdotes or happenings from everyday life help start her introduce her stories, which often provide children with fable-like insight while offering them the chance to delve into a different universe. Her work explores the relationships between words and images, what is said and left unsaid, and everyday life and imagination. Her drawings tend to be quite minimalist, with much of the stories kept in simple black-and-white drawings. This brings out the vibrancy of the colours she does choose to include, and emphasises the natural expressiveness of her characters.
Pedro and George (Atheneum Books for Young Readers)
The Big Bad Wolf and Me (Sterling Children's Books)
