Andre Letria

Place: Lisbon

Born: 1973

Biography:

André Letria was born in Lisbon in 1973. He studied painting at the Faculdade de Belas Artes de Lisboa. Since 1992, he has worked as an illustrator, mostly for children’s books and educational material for newspapers and magazines such as »O Independente«, »Journal de Letras«, »Livros«, »Visão«, and »Ícon«. He has also presented his work at various exhibitions such as the Bratislava Biennale, the Bologna Illustrators Exhibition, Sarmede, and Ilustrarte. He has collaborated with his father, writer and dramatist José Jorge Letria, on a number of his projects. Their 2011 collaboration »Se Eu Fosse Um Livro« (Eng. »If I Were a Book«, 2014) was written as an homage to the book as a medium. In this work, Letria complemented the delicate texts by his father with playful, imaginative illustrations, in which a book is sometimes depicted as a ship, sometimes as a dragon and shows children the different aspects, possibilities, and qualities of a book. The work was translated into many languages and was an international bestseller. His 2010 book »Mar« (Eng. »Ocean: A Visual Miscellany«, 2018) was created from texts by Ricardo Henriques. The book is intended for children eight and up and is an introduction to the world of the oceans and seafaring; it explains nautical terms, tells astonishing facts and anecdotes, reveals the techniques of the sailor’s knot, and explains how to find one’s way with a compass and the help of the stars. Letria and his father presented their second joint work »A guerra« in 2018 (Eng. »War«, 2021). The text of the poetic picture book addresses how wars quietly arise from misguided ambition and hatred. Concise, and structured, it is an invitation to reflect on the consequences of violence.