Kitty Crowther writes and illustrates children’s books. She was born and raised in Belgium by a Swedish mother and an English father. As a child she spent her summers in a small Dutch village by the water, and she always felt a strong connection to nature.
Born with hearing difficulties, Kitty struggled to communicate through her childhood – so she dived into the world of books. And since 1994 she’s been making her own books, communicating her thoughts, ideas, questions and emotions with a unique, honest and powerful voice. She says: “I don’t try to make pleasant books, but stories that fascinate me deeply. I don’t have the impression that I choose my stories; I think they choose me.”
She has written and/or illustrated more than forty books which have been translated into about thirty languages. She also works on a variety of other projects including theatre productions and live drawing events. She travels widely, giving conferences and workshops to children and adults all around the world.
She has won a large number of awards for her work, and in 2010 she received the world’s most prestigious prize for children’s literature: the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA). The ALMA jury described her as “the master of line but also of atmosphere” and they said that “the sympathy and intense empathy she shows with her fictional characters is an expression of the deep humanism that runs through all her works.”
