Svjetlan Junaković

AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR

Svjetlan Junaković was born in Zagreb, Croatia in 1961. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera in Milan in 1985. He is a docent at Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, and currently teaches at the International School of Illustration in Sarmede, Italy.

He has been nominated for three times and shortlisted twice for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. His works have been awarded Grigor Vitez Prize for the best book for five times, and have been selected for Bologna Children’s Book Fair’s Illustrator Exhibition for several times. The Big Book of Animal’s Portrait has been selected into the Bologna Illustrations Exhibition 50 years Master Exhibition. So far his works have been translated into dozens of languages and got published worldwide.

AWARDS
IBBY Honor List, 1998
The Golden Plaque, Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava, Slovakia, 2001
Third Prize, Oita Biennale, Japan, 2004
Special Mention, Bologna Ragazzi Award, Italy, 2008
Finalist, Hans Christian Andersen Award, Danmark, 2008
Finalist, Hans Christian Andersen Award, Danmark, 2010
Nominee, Hans Christian Andersen Award, Danmark, 2014
Image of the Book Award, 2020

REVIEWS
“Svjetlan Junaković presents beautiful compositions that are expressive and emotional,while at the same time playful, imaginative and evocative.”
——Hans Christian Andersen Award jury members

“Everything else is derived from the fact that I love to draw and that I do
it all the time and in all circumstances. In my drawings I create new worlds
which are all mine, the beautiful and the ugly, the boring and the fun ones.”
—— Svjetlan Junaković