Baek Hee-na

Baek Hee-na is a South Korean author-illustrator of picture books who won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2020. She is best known internationally for Fatty Legs (Cake Girl), Cloud Bread, and Cuckoo Noodles. Her books are celebrated for their inventive blend of photography, crafts, and painting, and for their capacity to address children's inner emotional lives with great sensitivity. Baek studied arts and crafts and came to picture books through her interest in visual narrative. Her illustration style is distinctive: she often uses handmade dolls, fabric, and photographs as the basis for her compositions, creating a warm and tactile visual world. Her work has been widely translated and she is considered one of the leading voices in contemporary Korean children's picture books. She lives in Seoul.