Carll Cneut: “Deep inside I feel a bit like an Italian”

“I hope none of you are allergic to dust?” Carll Cneut greets the ten foreign publishers taking part in Flanders Literature’s publishers tour with a joke. Not what you’d expect from an illustrator with so many beautiful books, prizes and translations to his name, but the visit makes Cneut slightly nervous. “I hardly ever invite people to visit my studio.”

The studio is on the first floor of a restored building, more than 200 years old, on a shady square in Ghent. It consists of two adjoining light-filled rooms. In the first of them are trestle tables holding the original illustrations for Oh Pinocchio, Cneut’s latest work. The publishers react with enthusiasm. “Wow, the colours are even more vivid than in the book” and “Look at the workmanship, all those different layers!” They give free rein to their curiosity. How many books has Cneut illustrated? (About thirty.) How long did he spend working on Oh Pinocchio? (Four years.) Did he work more quickly in the past? (“Because you don’t look 120 to us” – general hilarity.)

While the group gathers around his worktable, Cneut tells of the moments that boosted his career. “A glowing review in Le Monde for the French translation of my first book and a hug from a famous British publisher at the trade fair in Bologna – after that everyone wanted to know who I was.” The visit to the studio lasts around three quarters of an hour and then the publishers tour moves on. Cneut goes to sit at the picnic table in his green city garden with his coffee. “That was intense, so many people at a place where I generally sit working alone. But at the same time I’m grateful for the interest.”

“In 2002 Macmillan published ‘The Amazing Love Story of Mr Morf’ in English translation. The reach of a leading international publishing house like that – nobody in Flanders can give you anything comparable. At the same time, success is unpredictable. One Million Butterflies, my 2007 book with a text by Edward van de Vendel, has been translated numerous times. I expected a lot of The Golden Cage, published in 2004, but the story, about a royal princess who orders countless servants to be beheaded, was rather more difficult in a period when IS was dominating the news. There are always many factors at play in the reception given to a book.”

“My work has been published in more than 35 languages, from Hungarian and Brazilian to Japanese and Korean, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. To truly build a relationship with a foreign readership, I need a committed publisher with whom it clicks on a personal level. As a result of the first publishers tour, I found my ‘home’ at German publisher Bohem Verlag. Before that my work had appeared in Germany with one publisher one time, another the next. Because of the strong relationship with my current publisher I’m motivated to put time and energy into promotion. Today I was able to meet quite a few publishers from northern Europe: Finland, Denmark, Sweden... It would be great to establish good contacts for the Scandinavian market.”

“With the Italian and the French. In both language areas I’ve had the same publisher for years, and they publish everything I create. That means I’m happy to engage in signing sessions and reading tours. Despite the fact they’re tiring and time-consuming: I see mainly train compartments and bookshops (laughs).”

“As a child I discovered a well-thumbed version of the book in the attic at my cousin’s house. The story grabbed me immediately, although I can’t say exactly why. At any rate not because of that nose that grows whenever he tells a lie. Over the years I’ve read innumerable Pinocchios, from the original and its shortened or alternative versions to sequels. In an interview I once talked about my fascination for the puppet. Almost five years ago, in an art gallery, a woman of about seventy-five came up to me. Completely unexpectedly, she pressed a copy of ‘Pinocchio’ into my hands and tapped on my breastbone saying, ‘You have to do it!’ That too was special.”

“When I won the Vlaamse Cultuurprijs voor de Letteren 2014-2015 I was moved by the laudation. It claimed that in the books I illustrate I take on part of the role of ‘narrator’. I thought that was wonderful, because it’s precisely what I try to do. For me, the text tells a first version of the story, while the illustrations tell a second, and because there’s always a bit of space between text and picture, the reader adds their own, final version on top. The more readers, the more final versions there are of the same story. I started working on Oh Pinocchio with that philosophy in mind. The text by Imme Dros reads very smoothly and rhythmically; she’s discarded a lot of ballast. In my illustrations I pick up on that and bring back some of the elements omitted, such as Pinocchio’s stay with the Disobedient Boys.”

“I’m a graphic designer by training and in my late twenties I tumbled into the job. So in 2016, to celebrate twenty years as an illustrator, I published a new version of Witchfairy. In 1996 I had a particular vision, but I lacked the experience in drawing and painting needed to get it on paper precisely. Today I have more skills, and therefore more options. That allows me to work more intuitively. It’s true that I have an approach not many painters use – I start off with an archetypical figure and build a whole image around that. But if you line up all my books, I hope you’ll see an evolution.”

“A new, big solo exhibition is planned for 2027. I’m looking forward to it enormously and I’m terrified of it at the same time. Because there are so many more expectations than the first time, with ‘In my head’ in the Saint Peter’s Abbey in Ghent in 2015. Visitors there were immersed in my universe through an audio tour, an extensive series of polaroids and an exhibition of some eighty original illustrations. At the end they entered a large room with a reconstruction of my studio. Sometimes I sat there working, and news of that got around. The organization had been hoping for 10,000 visitors, whereas there were ultimately 50,000. Incredible! And the more people came, the greater their expectation of seeing me at work. In the end I lived for months in that exhibition studio; I even taught from there. I’ve no idea whether it’s smart to want to repeat the experience (laughs).”