Guojing's Blog

I love the city. It’s full of wonderful art surprises. In the 16th International Literature Festival Berlin, I shared my book with the lovely audience in 4 events: 3 book sharing events and 1 illustration class.The festival organisers were fantastic to work with and arranged very special and beautiful book sharing events. In the picture below you can see the live piano performance of the amazingly talented Stephan v. Bothmer. It was like we were enjoying a silent film.It was interesting for me to see, from those events, that some of the students also want to be artists. One child even started drawing a book character from the event and he drew it so well. It’s so pleasing to inspire younger people. This is the most valuable thing from my book sharing events. I also received a special gift from one adorable child—three nuts. (I’m not sure what kind of fruit it is, but he told me it’s in the nut family!) On the last day in Berlin, after I did an interview with “tell Magazin fur Literature” I travelled back home to Singapore. This was my first Berlin trip and I’m so glad it was for the 16th International Literature Festival Berlin. I hope to visit again in the future.

Guojing had a busy weekend in Beijing at the end of August promoting her Chinese language edition of The Only Child, which was recently published with Citic Press.“I did an interview and two book launches in Beijing. One in BIBF and other one in the Citic bookstore. We talked about The Only Child and how I made it.”The Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF) is the largest annual international book fair in China, and this was its 23rd year running.The wordless graphic novel, about a little girl who is lost and alone following a magical stag into the woods, attracted a lot of attention at BIBF and in the China Citic book store.And here’s Guojing about to hand sign 3000 copies of The Only Child!“I signed 3000 books in 4 and half hours.”Between interviews and signings, Guojing had a chance to explore the venue and meet other authors and illustrators.“It was so busy in China. It’s lucky I got the Nobel price winner Svetlána Alexándrovna Alexiévich’s signature.”It looks like it was a fun and successful weekend, with lots of support for The Only Child. We couldn’t be happier for Guojing!