Jan Pienkowski

Joanna Carey talks to Jan Pienkowski for the Guardian. Pienkowski is a well known and loved illustrator (particularly in the U.K.), whose The Fairy Tales will soon be released in the U.S. Pienkowski discusses the transformations necessary to create the large scale version of the fairy tales (originally six small books) and for U.S. publication:

• "Now, almost 30 years later, these same tales have been dramatically repackaged, in a large-format gift book with a beautiful gold-blocked cover and a glossy dustjacket, as The Fairy Tales. Was this an easy transformation? Apart from the loss of that pocket-sized intimacy, were there any problems? The words, Walser tells me, are more or less unchanged but there was a slight problem with the pictures: the new clarity of the enlarged silhouettes emphasised certain details, necessitating some small but significant adjustments for the US market. 'It was the nipples,' says Pienkowski."

Carey discusses Pienkowski's flight from Poland to Germany and then to England as a child, his beginnings as a children's writer and illustrator, and his plans for the future. An interesting interview!