Helena Klakocar

Helena Klakocar was born in Tuzla, in the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina into a Croatian family. When she was 7 her family moved to Slovenia where she attended primary and grammar school. She studied graphic art at the Art Academy in Zagreb, Croatia and became successful as a comics author, designer of posters and animation films. She was working as an art organizer in a certain advanced gallery in Zagreb.

In summer 1991 she went on a sailing holiday with her husband and two-year-old daughter. Their return from Greece was prolonged because of the outburst of the war in Former Yugoslavia. That winter, on a small catamaran she was capturing daily life and memories of her homeland in drawings and text. In 1992 they moved to Holland where she continued her diary with observations of the new world: 'Friesland (Restless Sea 2)'.

Her book 'Restless Sea 1' (in French entitled as 'Passage en Douce') was published by Freon, Brussels in 1999. In 2000 she received a Special Award of France Info Radio and an Alpha-Art Award as best foreign author, at the Angoulème Comics Festival.

After that success she received a grant by Fonds BKVB, Amsterdam and later from Centre de la livre, Paris, to continue with this story. Besides being a graphic novelist she is also a painter, graphic artist, illustrator and an author of children's books. Her books are published in French in Belgium (publisher Fremok), in Croatian in Serbia (Fabrika knjiga), Slovenian (Aristej) and in Italian (Communicarte Edizioni).