A children's book about other children who lived in absurd times. A visual haiku about the dark past and those who withstood abuse, always searching for the light. The graphic novel "Siberian Haiku", created by Jurga Vile and Lina Itagaki, is about beauty, kindness and survival, despite the horrors of reality. The book was inspired by the true life story of writer Jurga Vile's father, who was deported to Siberia with his family by the Soviet regime.
”It’s not easy to find the way to talk to children, to draw their attention, so that they trust you, so that the interest doesn’t disappear after reading a few pages and even when they close the book. I like to search for a right way to talk to children about any subject. I also like to leave some secrets, not to reveal or explain all”, says Jurga.
Jurga Vile is a writer, translator and screenwriter from Lithuania. Lina Itagaki is an illustrator and designer from Lithuania. Siberian Haiku was their first book. We talk to Jurga and Lina about their journey to writing this graphic novel, their artistic meeting and how they created "Siberian Haiku" together.
Jurga: I grew up in Vilnius, spending lots of time in the streets of the old town. After school I studied French Philology at Vilnius University and then cinema and audiovisual medias at Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. I got specialized in archiving and film restauration. Languages and cinema, words and images are always very important to me. I spent a couple of years in New York, volunteering at the Anthology Film Archives and when I came back home I worked as a script girl on different film productions.
