2005 Günter Grass

Günter Grass is a well-known German author and artist, born in Danzig in 1927. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature in 1999. In the autumn of 2001, Grass illustrated Hans Christian Andersen for the first time. His interpretation of The Princess on the Pea was the germ of a growing interest in the poet, which culminated in the great work graphic work he published in 2004, containing 96 illustrations of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. The illustrations are a very dedicated and personal interpretation of the fairy tales, adding something quite new and unique to them. With his illustrations, Günter Grass renews Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, taking them out of the nursery and bringing them into an adult world and emphasizing the more dangerous and complicated ­sides of Andersen’s nature. The illustrations are the result of thorough research, as Günter Grass is a very diligent artist, who in his work goes to the bottom of the artistic problems it poses. Not only has he read all the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, but has studied his diaries and travel books in order to get to know him better and to achieve a deep ­un­der­standing of his character.