Interview with Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan is a Melbourne-based artist and author, whose work is celebrated worldwide for the beautiful, dynamic, and mesmerizing story worlds that it offers readers and viewers. In 2011, Tan received the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in honour of his contribution to international children’s literature, and an Academy Award for the short animated film adaptation of The Lost Thing (Ruheman and Tan 2011), which he directed with Andrew Ruhemann. Tan’s work ranges from drawing and painting, to sculpture and animation, whose complex themes, and sensitive nuances resist easy classification. Instead, his sometimes surreal, playful, and evocative stories immerse readers into new and productively strange places.