(born 1969) Prize-winning Norwegian illustrator and picture book author. Educated at the Institute for Visual Communication at the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo. He made his debut in 2005 with ‘The Old Man and the Whale’ (published in Danish in 2015) and since then he has published five children’s books, which he has illustrated himself, including the artfully melancholic stories about a boy, called Garmann. In Hole’s books, an artfully photoshopped and imaginative picture universe goes hand in hand with an existential confrontation with reality where children’s disturbed state of mind is taken seriously and is given a language of expression. In 2006 Stian Hole was awarded the Brage Award (for the most beautiful picture book of the year), the Bologna Ragazzi Award in 2007, the Nordic Children’s Book Award in 2009, the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2010 and once again the Brage Award in 2010.
© Andre Løyning