The Bookseller reports Macmillan Publishers have officially signed on to produce a graphic novel adaptation of Antonio Iturbe’s prolific biography The Librarian of Auschwitz. The OGN, set to release in Fall 2022, will be adapted to the medium by writer Salva Rubio (“The Photographer of Mauthausen”), and artist Loreto Aroca. Lilit Zekulin Thwaites, who translated the original book into English, will return for the graphic novelization.
“The Librarian of Auschwitz” tells the story of Dita Kraus, a young girl from Prague whose family were interned in Auschwitz during the German occupation of the Czech Republic and the Holocaust. At fourteen years old, she agreed to safeguard eight special books other prisoners managed to get past the guards. By lending them to the children and people in need she helped educate and inspire all those trapped with her.
Antonio Iturbe is a Spanish journalist who based the book on a series of interviews he conducted with Kraus, publishing the original prose text in 2012. Iturbe and Kraus continue to be friends to this day. He will be releasing his next novel, The Prince of the Skies, in October 2021.
Rubio has written prose, television and comics: his credits include the 2017 graphic novel “Money: Itinerant of Light,” for which illustrator Richard Efa received an Eisner nomination for Best Painter/Multimedia Artist. Spanish artist Loreto Aroca, who is a graduate of the University of Castilla-La Mancha, previously won the school’s Luna de Aire Award, honoring the best poetry aimed at children, for her and Fran Pintadera’s book “Portrait of the Pinzón family” (“Retrato de la familia Pinzón”).
“Publishing ‘The Librarian of Auschwitz’ — and meeting Dita Kraus — has been one of the highlights of my publishing career,” said publishing director Gillian Green. “I’m delighted that Pan Mac [the name of the company in the UK] will be bringing this important novel, and Dita’s inspirational story, to a whole new audience in this different format. In recent years we’ve seen a huge rise in literary and non-fiction graphic novels, and it is our absolute honour and privilege to continue to share Dita’s story as widely as possible.”
