How I work: Nora Krug

Fresh from winning Illustrator of the Year at the 2019 V&A Illustration Awards, Nora Krug discusses her ‘documentarian’ approach to writing books, and how she pieces illustrations together like sculptures

For Nora Krug’s latest book, Heimat: A German Family Album, the artist delved deep into the history of her hometown and her family to question and better understand her- -ideas of German cultural identity. The end result blends archival photography, illustration and storytelling with found documents such as family letters and pages from school exercise books. It’s an unusual mix of graphic novel and memoir, and a particularly personal insight into life under the Nazi regime.

But while this is her first auto-biographical work – after a retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story and an atlas exploring myths around the world – her interest in exploring his-tory and life is longstanding. Here Krug shares how a background in documentary-making continues to inform how she works, and why having a pencil in her hand helps with creative block.