Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan
Shaun Tan in 2011
Born (1974-01-15) January 15, 1974 (age 50)
Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Notable workThe Red Tree
The Lost Thing
The Arrival
Cicada
Websiteshauntan.net
thebirdking.blogspot.com.au

Shaun Tan (born 15 January 1974)[1] is an Australian artist, writer and film maker. He won an Academy Award for The Lost Thing, a 2011 animated short film adaptation of the 2000 picture book he wrote and illustrated. He also wrote and illustrated the books The Red Tree (2001) and The Arrival (2006).

Born in Fremantle, Tan grew up in Perth. In 2006, his wordless graphic novel The Arrival won the Book of the Year prize as part of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.[2] It also won the 2007 Children's Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year award,[3] and the 2006 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Premier's Prize.[4]

Tan's work has been described as an "Australian vernacular" that is "at once banal and uncanny, familiar and strange, local and universal, reassuring and scary, intimate and remote, guttersnipe and sprezzatura. No rhetoric, no straining for effect. Never other than itself."[5] For his career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense", Tan won the 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council, the biggest prize in children's literature.[6]

  1. ^ "Shaun Tan". Britannica Kids. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
  2. ^ "2007 NSW Premier's Literary Awards", The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 2007
  3. ^ "Winners 2007", Book of the Year Awards, CBCA.
  4. ^ "Shaun Tan", Premier's Book Awards Hall of Fame, State Library of Western Australia.
  5. ^ Robb, Peter (13 September 2013). "The view from outside". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference alma2011 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).