Eleanor Wachtel in conversation with Nora Krug

What interests the award-winning German-American writer and illustrator, Nora Krug is “exploring how political and social issues can be communicated on an emotional and personal level through visual narratives.” Just days after of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago, Krug got in touch with a Russian-born Ukrainian journalist based in Kyiv, K., and an anti-war artist from St. Petersburg, D., to find out how they were.  Thus began a year-long correspondence.  Based on her weekly interviews with K. and D., Krug created and illustrated Diaries of War, an intimate and powerful account that highlights their contrasting realities.  

Nora Krug’s previous book, the graphic memoir Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home was an unflinching and compassionate investigation into her own family’s involvement in the Second World War and the weight of history on successive generations. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Krug was named Illustrator of the Year by the Victoria and Albert Museum.   

This fall, Krug will continue her research on war and politics and embark on a new project as a fellow at Yale University’s Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, the archive that pioneered the usage of video testimonies to record eyewitness accounts of major historical events.

Join her in conversation with the renowned literary journalist Eleanor Wachtel.