Adam Jaromir
Adam Jaromir was born in 1971 in Bielsko-Biała in southern Poland. He studied German and Italian at the universities of Hanover and Florence. In Hanover in 2006 he co-founded, together with Luca Emanueli, the Gimpel publishing company, which specialises in publishing children’s books, including Iwona Chmielewska’s multiple-award-winning »Pamiętnika Blumki« (2011, t: Blumka’s Diary – On Living in Janusz Korczak’s Orphanage). Alongside his work as a publisher, Adam Jaromir is also an author and translator. His own books – also published by Gimpel – are often about the experience of otherness, as in »Zarafa« (2009) the tale of the historical giraffe Zarafa, who arrived in Paris in 1827 after a two-year journey from Africa and was greeted by tens of thousands of spectators. With eloquence and delicate humour, Jaromir speculates as to what the giraffe might have experienced at the court of the French king. The book has an unusual portrait format and follows a finely detailed and complex structure of image and text, which is remarkable for the inventiveness of the typography and for Pawel Pawlak’s charming illustrations. »Zarafa« is about literal beginnings and the magic they contain, the desire for adventure, and the magic of storytelling. Jaromir’s book »Słoniątko« (2010) is no less ambitious. It is the story of a little white elephant who travels from the African savannah to the city of Meissen, famed for its porcelain. The design is once more a cleverly-conceived symbiosis of image and text, enchanting the reader with short, powerful lines, an exceptional typography and Gabriela Cichowska’s beautiful illustrations – a touching and thoughtful story of an animal searching for nothing less than itself and its place in the world. With »Fräulein Esthers letzte Vorstellung – Eine Geschichte aus dem Warschauer Ghetto« (2012, ill: Gabriela Cichowska, t: Miss Esther’s last performance – A story of the Warsaw ghetto) and »Tallula – Königin der Nacht« (2012, ill: Józef Wilkoń, t: Tallula – Queen of the night) Adam Jaromir published two more books in 2012. With the books he has so far published and written, Jaromir has established his importance as one of the courageous “bibliophiles” who – flying in the face of market pressures – actively support the picture book as a relevant artistic form in Germany.
Adam Jaromir has received prizes and awards for his work as both publisher and author, including the Bologna Ragazzi Award (2011) and a nomination for the German Prize for Children’s Literature (2012). Adam Jaromir has lived in Hanover since 1985.
© internationales literaturfestival berlin
Zarafa
[Ill: Pawel Pawlak]
Gimpel
Hannover, 2009
Fantje
[Ill: Gabriela Cichowska]
Gimpel
Hannover, 2010
Fräulein Esthers letzte Vorstellung
Eine Geschichte aus dem Warschauer Ghetto
[Ill: Gabriela Cichowska]
Gimpel
Hannover, 2012
Tallula – Königin der Nacht
[Ill: Józef Wilkoń]
Gimpel
Hannover, 2012
www.les-amis-de-zarafa.com
