Vyara Boyadjieva lives in the Netherlands and Bulgaria. She graduated from studies in illustration and comics from the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna and the Cambridge School of Art. She mainly works with illustrations in the picture book genre. In 2020, Boyadjieva received the Victoria and Albert Museum Student of the Year Award, London. She has illustrated several children’s picture books, as well as created numerous book covers and magazine illustrations. Her books have been published by Flying Eye Books, Walker Books, La Joie de Lire, and several Bulgarian publishing houses, including Tochitsa, List, and Janet 45. She travels constantly and teaches illustration at an art college in the Netherlands.
My Sofia and Other Images
Author: Vyara Boyadjieva
Illustrator: Vyara Boyadjieva
Year of publication: 2024
Publisher: Tochitsa
Number of pages: 60
Format: 195 x 245, hardback
ISBN: 978-619-717-243-0
My Sofia and Other Images is a bright view of the human charm of the city of Sofia, a picture book for adults in which the main characters are ordinary people and the small gestures that reveal their character – or simply set the mood of the moment.
In her book, artist Vyara Boyadzhieva sees Sofia as a collection of stories. The stories of the people she meets along her way. The colorful characters around us who make life in the city so vital, fill it with dynamics, with story plots... and with charm. A veritable wealth of sketched characters – a word understood both in its “artistic” sense and colloquially, as in “he’s quite a character.” These are not eccentric types, but ordinary people with their characteristic funny peculiarities, with everything that makes both people and cities unique.
The book is part of the exhibition Joy, Sadness and Hope. 25 Bulgarian Children’s Book Illustrators
