A studio called Agrafka run by two Ukrainian illustrators has won a major international prize for children books for the third time in the last five years.
Studio founders Andrii Lesiv and Romana Romanyshyn can now boast not only of being the only Ukrainians to have won BolognaRagazzi Award – they are among the few illustrators in the world to receive it more than once.
Their books “Loudly Softly in a Whisper” and “I See That” won awards in the non-fiction category on Feb. 12. This year, the jury picked out winners from among over 100 illustrators from 40 countries.
Lesiv told the Kyiv Post that this win was important not only for the studio, but for Ukraine in general, too.
Books “Loudly Softly in a Whisper” and “I See That,” illustraited by Agrafka studio, won awards in the non-fiction category on Feb. 12.
“Even just a mention in this award creates endless possibilities for an illustrator and his publisher, not only in a commercial way but also because of the international image it establishes for them,” Lesiv said on Feb. 13. “If an illustrator wins in such a competition, it means that he is a trendsetter.”
The two books that won awards explore and explain the human senses. “Loudly Softly in a Whisper” is dedicated to hearing, while “I See That” examines how humans see.
Both books were published by the Lviv-based publishing house “Vydavnytstvo Staroho Leva.” According to Lesiv, they are not planning to expand the book series dedicated to human senses, so these will be the only books made by the studio on this topic. However, the couple is already working on some new projects, which they intend to keep under wraps for now.
Previously, Agrafka won the BolognaRagazzi Award in 2014 in the category “Opera Prima” for their illustrations in the book “Stars and Poppy Seeds,” and in 2015, in the category “New Horizons” for their illustrations in “The War that has Changed Rondo.”
However, Romanyshyn and Lesiv are not the only Ukrainian illustrators to have gained recognition in the international community. In 2017, Hanna Sarvira was recognized as one of the best 75 illustrators of the world during the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. That same year, Maskym Polischuk, an 18-year-old illustrator from Lviv, won the “Illustrator of the Future” prize in the U.S. L. Ron Hubbard’s Illustrators of the Future Contest, a competition for science fiction and fantasy illustrators.
To order a copy of “Loudly Calmly in a Whisper” in French go to www.amazon.co.uk.
To order both books by Agrafka in Ukrainian go to www.starylev.com.ua. and www.starylev.com.ua
