Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
A lifetime’s work recognised for children’s author
City writer and illustrator awarded CBE
Children’s author and illustrator Anthony Browne shot to fame in 1983 with his award-winning book, Gorilla, which sold millions across the world. But his rise to global recognition was not without its tribulations, because he was badly bitten by an ape while reading the story from an enclosure at a zoo for a television broadcast. Otherwise, his long and illustrious literary career has been less traumatic, earning him a host of accolades, including being the first British illustrator to be awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2002 and being made Children’s Laureate from 2009 to 2011.
And now, after publishing 50 books, he has received a well-deserved CBE in the New Year’s Honours list for services to literature.
“In some ways this award feels different”, said the 74-year-old, speaking from his home in Canterbury city centre.
“It’s like an acknowledgement for the culmination of everything I’ve done and I’m really delighted.” Growing up in a ‘rough’ pub in Bradford which his father ran, Anthony might well have picked up boxing gloves instead of an artist’s pen.
But he had his parents’ full support when he decided to go to art college to study graphic design.
He was just 17, however, when he suffered the huge shock of witnessing his father suffer a heart attack and die.
“My dad was a big, strong man who kept order in the pub” he said.
“He was like superman to me and I thought he was invincible, so it hit me hard and took a long time to get over. But I think he would have been really proud of what I went on to achieve.” Anthony left college and got a job as a medical artist because it
“sounded interesting”. He worked at Manchester Royal Infirmary for three years, painting delicate watercolours of graphic operations.
“It taught me a lot more about drawing than I ever learned at art college, and I believe it taught me how to tell stories in pictures,” he said.
But in a change of art direction, he began designing greetings cards, working for the Gordon Fraser Gallery. “Gordon Fraser became a close friend and taught me a lot about card design, which was to prove very useful when I came to do children’s books,” he said. “I experimented with many styles and many subjects, from snowmen, to dogs with big eyes, to gorillas.
“I sent some of my designs to
‘It’s one of those careers where you can keep going as long as the ideas and inspiration keeps coming’
various children’s book publishers and it was through one of these that I met Julia Macrae, who was to become my editor for the next 20 years.
“She taught me much of what I know about writing and illustrating children’s books.” Antony’s books have been translated into 26 languages, and his illustrations have been exhibited in countries around the world, many of which he has visited and worked with local schoolchildren. In 2001-2002, he took a job as writer and illustrator at Tate Britain, working with children using art as a stimulus to inspire visual literacy and creative writing activities.
A father-of-two and now a grandfather-of-four, Anthony says he has no plans to retire and currently publishes a new book every year.
“It’s one of those careers where you can keep going as long as the ideas and inspiration keeps coming,” he said.