CHRISTIAN / EPANYA
CAMEROON
ILLUSTR ATOR AND LITER ATURE FOR CHILDREN
C
hristian Epanya was born and grew up in Cameroon. He studied in France and graduated in biology from Lyon, where he now lives. It was not until he was about 30 that he had the chance to study art and develop his artistic ta- lents. He made his debut at the beginning of the 1990s, at that time mostly as an illustrator of the texts of others and received UNICEF’s prize for illustrators in Bologna in 1993. Together with Kid Bebey, he has contributed several titles to the New African Stories series for child- ren, including Why Aren’t I in the Photographs (2001).So far, Epanya has published three children’s books written and illustrated by himself, one of which, Papa Diops Taxi, was a hit when it was published by Trasten in 2006. This colourful picture book is about everyday life in the city of Saint-Louis in Senegal, while his next book, Le petit photographe de Bamba (2007) is about Amadou, a young boy living along the Djoliba River in Mali. His latest book, Mes images du Sénegal (2009), is again set in Senegal.