The Auschwitz Violin

The Author
Anna Lavatelli is one of Italy’s best known children’s writers. She has won a number of prizes, including the “Battello a Vapore” in 1993 and the Andersen award in 2005 as best Italian author with Bimbambel (Interlinea). Her books have been published in Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, South Korea, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru.

The Illustrator
Cinzia Ghigliano (Cuneo, Italy, 1952) started her career as a cartoonist in 1976, on the magazine “Linus”. Two years later, she was awarded with the prestigious Yellow Kid as the Italian Cartoonist of the Year. Along with the scriptwriter Marco Tomatis, she has created some memorable serial characters – such as Isolina, Lea Martelli, Solange – whose series were also featured on high-circulation magazines. Especially Solange, who debuted in 1984, was translated in different languages. In the following years, Cinzia Ghigliano published several stories for children and teenagers on “Il Corriere dei Piccoli”. Cinzia Ghigliano’s paintings and figures are nowadays found in many private and public collections, such as the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Bruxelles, the Angouleme Museum in France, and the Lisbon Museum in Portugal. Her work as a children’s illustrator has become more intense in the last years; she has collaborated with Italian most important publishing houses, and received many prestigious awards. In 2003 she was awarded with the Caran d’Ache for the Year’s Best Illustrator. In recent times, she has also devoted herself to paintings, and achieved great success with her exhibitions. She teaches illustration and comics classes at the Accademia Pictor and at the European Institute of Design in Turin.