Wer ist eigentlich Tatia Nadareischwili? Und was mag/macht sie für Kinderbücher? Drei Fragen an die Illustratorin und Autorin aus Georgien.
– How did you start to illustrate books for children (and young people)?
I studied illustration at Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, but my first steps in book creation was connected with „Virgam virtual publishers“. I was a fourth-year student
when we, under the leadership of our teacher, founded ,“Virgam
Virtual Publishers“. We made our first books and presented them to Tbilisi Book
Festival. Afterwards our 10 books were published by one of the biggest Publishing house in Georgia. About 3 years later we founded an organization „The Book Art Center“. „Virgam“ became one of the projects of that organization and we continued making books, organizing workshops with famous illustrators from abroad; we went to Frankfurt and Bologna book festivals and it was a great experience for young illustrators. Everything in my life is connected with books and illustration now, with my best friend I have founded the studio and concept store – „illustrator“ were we continued working on our books. I like to invent the stories for children, mostly I use the real stories from my childhood, my imaginations. I like to give a new life to the old memories.
Etwa drei Jahre später haben wir dann das „Book Art Center“ gegründet und „Virgam“ wurde Teil des Projekts, so dass wir weiterhin Bücher machten und Workshops mit renommierten IllustratorInnen aus dem Ausland organisierten; gemeinsam besuchten wir die Buchmessen in Frankfurt und Bologna, was eine großartige Erfahrung für uns junge IllustratorInnen war.
Heute steht alles in meinem Leben mit Büchern und Bildern in Verbindung. Zusammen mit meiner besten Freundin habe ich „Illustrator“, eine Kombination aus Studio und Concept store, gegründet. Dort arbeiten wir auch weiterhin an unseren Büchern. Ich liebe es, Geschichten für Kinder zu erfinden. Oft verwende ich dafür wahre Geschichten aus meiner Kindheit und meine Fantasie. Ich mag es, alten Erinnerungen neues Leben zu schenken.
– Which of your books should everybody be familiar with (and why)?
„Sweet Dreams“ became most popular among my works, it has been published by Baobab books for German-speaking market and it will be published also in China this year. Children like this book and I’m very happy, I have lots of workshops and readings and it’s a great pleasure to meet the audience this book was created for. But anyway my favorite is ,,The House’’ my very first book, it is not published yet and it is not for small children, it’s wholly real story. My publisher was going to publish also this book, we even had a contract, but finally they decided that it’s too risky for the market because it’s more like artbook.
Dennoch ist „Das Haus“ mein Favorit. Es ist mein erstes Buch und bisher nicht publiziert. Es basiert auf einer wahren Begebenheit und ist nicht für kleine Kinder. Mein Verlag wollte das Buch auch herausgeben, wir hatten sogar schon einen Vertrag, am Ende haben sie sich dann jedoch dagegen entschieden, da es zu riskant für den Markt sei – es ist eher ein Künstlerbuch.
– Which theme or motif would you love to work on in a children’s book some day?
Exactly now I’m having the stage to start my next book and most interesting theme is relations between the parents and children for me, especially between the mothers and kids. I have a little son and he is the most important part of my life. These relations are very interesting and actual for me and I think it could be the good motif for the children’s book.
