Nora Krug

was born in Karlsruhe in 1977. She studied stage design in Liverpool, visual communication at the Berlin University of the Arts, and Illustration as Visual Essay at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York City. Krug is an associate professor of illustration at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. Her drawings and illustrated stories appear regularly in renowned daily newspapers and magazines such as »The New York Times«, »The Guardian«, and »The New Yorker«.

Krug’s signature style results from the intersection of text, illustrations, and contemporary documents. Her works are both autobiographical and historical, such as her debut »Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home« (2018). Using a visual language sourced from archival material, photographs, drawings, handwritten texts, and letters, she explores her family’s past and German history after 20 years of living abroad. In 2021, Krug applied her collage-like style to illustrate historian Timothy Snyder’s bestseller »On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century« (2021), an examination of resistance to authoritarianism. Her recent work, »Diaries of War« (2023), falls under the category of graphic journalism. From the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the author corresponded weekly with a Kyiv journalist and an artist from St. Petersburg and juxtaposed their contrasting experiences side by side. The result is a report on everyday life in a state of emergency. »Illustrating does not mean creating beautiful pictures, but (…) taking apart content, questioning common narratives and shaking people up« – said the author in an interview with SWR.

»Belonging« has been translated into 16 languages and has received numerous international awards including the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award and the Schubart Literature Prize. In 2019, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London awarded her the title »Illustrator of the Year« and after being nominated for the German Youth Literature Prize 2019 and 2022, the German translation of »Belonging« was incorporated into German school curriculum.

Die Autorin lebt in Brooklyn, New York.

Status: April 2024

Heimat: Ein deutsches Familienalbum
Penguin
München, 2018
(Ü: Nora Krug)

Über Tyrannei
Zwanzig Lektionen für den Widerstand
C.H. Beck
München, 2021
(Ü: Andreas Wirthensohn)

Im Krieg
Zwei illustrierte Tagebücher aus Kiew und St. Petersburg
Penguin
München, 2024
(Ü: Alexander Weber)