Shaun Tan

Australian author/illustrator Shaun Tan has won the 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, reports Publishers Weekly. It is the biggest prize for children’s and young adult literature, worth five million Swedish krona.

Melbourne-based Tan has illustrated more than 20 books, including The Rabbits (1998), The Lost Thing (2000), The Red Tree (2001), The Arrival (2006) and Tales from Outer Suburbia (2008).

His award citation, quoted in The Australian, reads: “Shaun Tan has reinvented the picture book by creating visually spectacular pictorial narratives with a constant human presence.”

[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh and Andrew Porter for the story.]