Q: Originally from Germany, what are some of your favorite things about living and working in New York City?

A: That I can walk down the street and not see anybody who looks like me, listens to the same music, or reads the same books as I do. It makes you constantly look at your own identity from a new perspective.

Q: How and when did you first become interested in art and illustration?

A: My favorite children's books were those by Tomi Ungerer and Maurice Sendak (anti-authoritarian children's books were the standard in 1970s Germany, and Disney wasn't allowed in our house). 

But I also liked looking at old German illustrated books, such as Grimm's fairytales and the 19th-century classic, Struwwelpeter, depicting in exaggerated detail what happens to little boys and girls who misbehave. (A girl burning herself into a heap of ash while playing with matches, for instance.) The book was originally meant as a humorous take on the dogmatic children’s books that existed at the time, but today it is seen as dangerous to a child’s mental sanity. My mother just happened to keep her own childhood copy in our living room book shelf – that’s how I got to know about it.

Above and below: Spreads from Belonging – A German Reckons with History and Home (Scribner, October 2018

Q: What is your favorite part of the creative process? 

A: To me, the creative process is a struggle, and often a torturous one. Writing and illustrating is a constant decision making process. How can I create tension between words and images? How do I translate emotion into line? How do I balance images and text without being redundant? How can I evoke empathy without being sentimental? How can I surprise the reader when he or she turns the page? How can I reinvent my work and avoid getting stuck on doing what I've done so many times before? Why is what I do important? Who cares?

If there's something that deserves to be called a 'favorite part', I would say it is the collaborative process of working with editors and publishers, who have helped me tremendously with my current project, when it came to shaping the narrative arc of the book. The most rewarding moment, of course, is the moment when a drawing or a book is done. When I see it published and know that it communicates to someone somewhere in the world – when it takes on a life of its own, and I can stop worrying about it. 

Q: What are you reading?

A: There is a dusty pile of fiction and non-fiction books, and a few graphic novels on my bedside table. As for non-fiction, I love Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight, Alexandra Fuller's non-fiction account of growing up in Zimbabwe, and Nothing to Envy, Barbara Demnick's collection of stories told by North Korean refugees. As for fiction, I'm a big fan of Ian McEwan's uncomfortable and suspenseful Enduring Love and the ingenious wordsmanship of David Mitchell's, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. The Adventures of Tintin, the boy reporter, bring me straight back into my childhood after a stressful day at work. One book that has just come out and that I think everyone should read is On Tyranny, by historian Timothy Snyder. It’s basically a guide to what we can do to help preserve our democracy at times when its survival is challenged (i.e. now). 

Q: Who and what are some of your strongest influences?

A: I admire different artists' work for different reasons: Chris Ware for the way in which he constructs complex narratives that rethink the mechanics of space and time, Joe Sacco for his dedication to telling stories about the world that we should all know about, Tomi Ungerer for his intellectual and conceptual freedom, Henrik Drescher for the power of his intuition, Tadanori Yokoo for his visual bravery, and Brian Cronin and Oliver Schrauwen for the way in which they weigh the subconscious with the conceptual. I'm equally inspired by documentary filmmakers like Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man), Hubert Sauper (Darwin’s Nightmare), John Burgan (Memory of Berlin), Joshua Oppenheim (The Act of Killing), and Chuen Bin Choi (Old Choi’s Film). My husband Steven Guarnaccia is probably the biggest influence, because he is the one whose judgment I trust most. 

Q: What is your hobby?

A: I like to prune roses and to build outdoor shelters for stray cats.

Above and below: Spreads from Belonging – A German Reckons with History and Home (Scribner, October 2018).

Q: Where did your idea for Belonging – A German Reckons with History and Home originate? What was the most difficult part about getting from idea to finished art?

A: Belonging tells the story of my attempt to confront the hidden truths of my family’s wartime past in Nazi Germany and to comprehend the historical and personal forces that have shaped my life as a German growing up in the second generation after WWII. The memoir is equal parts graphic novel, family scrapbook, and investigative narrative, and it combines my drawings and hand-lettered texts with family photographs, letters and documents, archival materials, and flea market finds. The book is a reflection on guilt and memory, and on the meaning of national identity.

The atrocities my country committed during WWII cast a long shadow all throughout my childhood, and my years as a teenager were accompanied by a tremendous sense of inherited guilt. But even though we continuously learned about the Holocaust in school, the guilt we grew into remained abstract, and conversations about what happened in our own families were non-existent. By the time I learned about the Holocaust, all my grandparents had died, and I had missed my chance to ask them directly about their lives under the Nazi Regime. My guilt, and the gaping hole that was my family’s history, left me with a feeling of emotional paralysis and cultural disorientation. 

Right: Cover, Belonging – A German Reckons with History and Home (Scribner, October 2018). 

As a German living abroad for 20 years, I’ve often been aware that my accent alone can evoke the memory of the Nazis’ crimes. As a German amongst non-Germans, I felt the urge to confront my own family’s history in a new way, and to ask those questions I never had a chance to ask before.

The writing was definitely the hardest part. Weighing the historical with the personal, the past with the present (the book is as much about the outcomes of my research as it is about how my findings impact me as a German today) was a big challenge. It was also the first time that I wrote about myself and my own family, and about a subject that is, obviously, very loaded. Ed.note: the book is available on amazon.com

Q: What advice would you give to a young illustrator who is just getting noticed?

A: There is no secret recipe for success. Do the kind of work you are passionate about, not the kind of work you think is going to be most successful. Believe in yourself, but always question what you do. Think of yourself as an author; someone might be able to copy your style, but nobody can tell a story the way you can. Work hard.

Ed. Note: Nora has three events this week for Belonging – A German Reckons with History and Home:

Public Book Party tonight at Parsons Info

Book signing on Wednesday, October 3, at Greenlight Bookshop in Ft. Greene, Brooklyn Info

Book launch party on Thursday, October 4, at Society of Illustrators, NYC. Info

Nora Krug is a writer and artist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, LeMonde diplomatique and the Guardian, among other publications, and has been included in anthologies by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Chronicle Books. Her books, Red Riding Hood Redux, and Shadow Atlas, are included in the Library of Congress and Columbia University’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Krug’s animations were featured at the Sundance Film Festival, and her visual narratives were recognized with a silver cube from the Art Director’s Club, and with three gold medals from the Society of Illustrators. Her visual biographies were included in Houghton Mifflin’s Best American Comics, and Best American Non-Required Reading. She is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial, a Maurice Sendak, and a Fulbright Fellowship, a DAAD scholarship, and a Pollock-Krasner grant. Krug is the author of the WWII visual memoir, Belonging – A German Reckons with History and Home (Scribner 2018), and she is an associate professor in the Illustration Program at the Parsons School of Design in New York City. She received a B.A. (honours) in Performance Design from Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, an M.F.A. in Illustration and Documentary Film from the University of Arts Berlin, and an M.F.A. in Illustration as a Visual Essay from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.