Ariba (available now) is a debut picture book from visual storyteller Masha Manapov. We spoke with Masha about her retelling of this folktale, her creative process, humor, and the co-existence of old & new.

ELB: What place did storytelling and the sharing of stories have in your childhood?

MM: I think the fact that I spent my early childhood in the Soviet Union played a big part in my relationship with books. My sister taught me to read. She was six, I was four, and our main sources of entertainment were reading or playing outdoors. It wasn’t THAT long ago and it was really fun. Good books were hard to find. By government orders, every print run had to be spread equally over Russia’s vast territories, and therefore created a situation where certain books sold-out in the central towns within hours but remote locations where most people didn’t know how to read had full untouched stocks. My dad occasionally traveled for work and whenever he spotted a book that he liked, he used to bring it home. That reality made us read a lot and quite often it was literature that in today’s standards wouldn’t be conventional for our age, but was completely normal back then. This is what brought me to read Arthur Conan Doyle when I was six, the Three Musketeers trilogy when I was seven, and The Lord of the Rings before I reached nine and was still playing with dolls. Both of my parents are good storytellers. My dad used to make up narratives or sometimes it was simply retelling us whole books all by memory, as he did with The Hobbit.

I enjoyed drawing stories all the time and then retelling them to adults. I filled whole notebooks with comics even though I saw a comic book for the first time only after we immigrated from Azerbaijan to Israel. I also started to write my first autobiography when I was nine, but I think that that’s something everybody does. Don’t they?

ELB: What is your favorite story from childhood? Are there children’s stories that you discovered only in adulthood that you now cherish?

MM: I think that Peter Pan will always have a special place in my heart. It might not be the best book in the world but it has the right mix of adventure, thoughtfulness and sentiment. Ronia the Robber’s Daughter, The Brothers Lionheart and Timm Thaler all hold this same special place for similar reasons.

There are so many good books out there and from time to time I am introduced to a book that I appreciate, such as Duck, Death and the Tulip, which I discovered recently, but I can’t think about one that I cherish.

Even though I read the Moomins series as a child, I rediscovered it in my twenties and it made me appreciate it from a whole new perspective.

ELB: What is the story of Ariba really about for you? Do you see yourself in this story?

MM: Ariba’s story can be divided into two parts. There is the repetitive part where he tries to get rid of his old shoes, which derives from the original folk tale and its motif, which has been classified as '“an unavailing attempt to get rid of slippers; they always return."

And there is the part that I wrote with some help from my mom which I can definitely see myself in. It’s ridiculous that I didn’t really acknowledge it until the very last days of us sitting together, finalizing it during my last week in Israel (before I relocated to the UK in March 2015). The whole narrative of Ariba, moving from one place to another and, in an attempt to leave his old past behind, losing parts of his identity, was definitely present in my life. At the time, I simultaneously worked on a short animation about a man who is making a great journey through the ocean, snow and woods, while dragging his home behind him. Funnily enough, I didn’t see these three parallels at all while being in the process.

*A still from Masha’s animation, mentioned above.*

ELB: Please tell us about your artistic process.

MM: There are projects with clients, briefs and deadlines, and there are self-initiated projects that normally take me much longer to execute and involve more questioning and experimenting.

Normally, I do very rough hand-drawn sketches and once we've settled on one visual direction, I move to digital software. Due to time limitations I work mainly digitally, but handmade textures are part of my process and artistic style. I create the textures from a variety of unexpected materials, such as a scanned piece of bread, acrylic painting, or tuner transfer.

ELB: Your compositions are engaging on account of both color and perspective. Could you tell us something about how you use color and perspective in a narrative sense?

MM: Even though I do pride myself with good sense of color, I think that I’m pretty rubbish in perspective. I see images as if they are presented on a stage, while the reader is the audience. I don’t fight it anymore and just make it work and tell the story in the best possible way. Sometimes the story requires perspective or more drama or speed and then I’m happy to try something different.

In this book I created two limited color schemes. One for Ariba’s story and the other for Marcus. In the final scene, both color schemes come together. It is always important to me that the color does not take the focus from the story or compensate for the poor composition. When in doubt, I convert the illustration to greyscale to make sure it will work in black and white and that the color is not just a gimmick. If it doesn’t work, I go back and fix it.

*The evolution of the color palette and merging of compositions.*

ELB: What about this story was enjoyable to illustrate?

MM: The stories within the story are always my favorite part in the illustration process. Everybody will read the text and will notice the main details in the illustrations but during the process the illustrator spends so much time with his characters that he can’t avoid coming up with more stories and ideas.

Most of these stories stay in my imagination but some of these I translate into pictures. I completely trust the reader to find these little stories when they revisit the book on the second or third reading. When a stranger who reads the book tells me that they spotted these extras, I always feel like I found a soul mate.

ELB: Why did you want to retell this story and share it at this point in time with kids? It’s a story that has traveled around the world and found its way into many cultures. Do you think this backstory is important to share with kids and that it tells them something that is important to know?

MM: I guess that many folktales are talking about the human condition in a universal and timeless way that unites different cultures and generations. Finding these familiarities in shared stories that were told by uniquely different people brings me some comfort. I wish I knew where the original story came from and what inspired people to write it and retell it in so many different ways.

In the version that I decided to refer to, the shoes were definitely not a nuisance, more of a dear object. Therefore, I wanted to tell the story of these relationships and how the past and present intertwine with who we are.

Whether it is a new school, a new city or a new country, there is always some expectation from the society for a newcomer to integrate as what seems a natural step. But in reality it doesn’t always work. Even though nowadays having a rich cultural history has become cool, and there is more room to express it, being an outsider is still challenging for both kids and adults, no matter in which part of the world they are. Especially in today’s climate. I think the story reminds us about tolerance, empathy, losing yourself and finding a place where the new and the old can co-exist.

ELB: There is a strong but subtle current of humor in Ariba and a sense of absurdity too, about fate and chance and luck and all of what comes to decenter us as rulers of our own lives. Do you think humor and a sense of absurdity are important for kids? Is truth-telling important? Are stories that engender optimism and hope important?

MM: I don’t know much about children’s psychology but I think it is important for children to feel safe. And books can do that. This being said, the truth is complex and books need to reflect that with all the ugliness, messiness, hope, strength and heartbreak. Humor and absurdity are part of it and are both legitimate tools to communicate these stories.

I can’t say that as an adult I don’t feel betrayed by some of the narratives I grew up with as a child. The idea that the good always conquers the bad, for example, is a mega one. It took me years to process it. It would have been handy to know how fragile the good really is and how easy it is to break it.

ELB: Are humor and absurdity also central for you?

MM: Humor definitely, though in its verbal form it is very dry so not very child friendly. I use humor quite often in my editorial work to communicate challenging issues. Absurdity is something that came with the story and I wanted to keep it but it is definitely something that is more relatable to my mom. Children are a big part of her world and it is intertwined with play, clowning and music, and even some slapstick. I guess that this part of the story comes from her bubbly optimistic personality.

ELB: Do you think a sensibility that demotes the self and engages chance is central to the immigrant experience?

MM: Every immigration experience carries identity crisis in a bigger or a smaller scale. There is an element of vulnerability there, but people can act differently in times of crisis. My mother for example completely thrived and reinvented herself when we first moved, while other parts of her life were forever lost. When I moved to the UK, I claimed my original name back (which I was forced to change in Israel), joined a choir, and started listening to Regina Spector. Which for me is a form of crisis which I later recovered from.

I believe that every new relationship whether it is with a person or a place carries a lot excitement, opportunities, doubt and challenges, which I don’t think are unique to the immigrant experience, it is part of being human and everyday life. Being alert to these changes and finding balance and recognition is important.

I find that the universe has a way to make us more alert to some things that we tend to repress or ignore. I’m not a very spiritual person but I think that we can all use an external intervention from time to time. Even if it’s in the form of a shouting lady on the street or a song that we hear in the right moment. I also feel grateful and lucky when it happens.

ELB: Has your own journey from Baku to Israel to Bristol informed your own view of storytelling and the kinds of books you want to make?

MM: Even though all illustrators are sort of storytellers and it feels like a completely natural step, I didn’t plan to make books. It just never came to my mind that it’s a skill I might have. If I ever stopped to think about the responsibilities an author carries to write for a younger audience, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Living in such different places did give me perspective and the ability to see things beyond my little bubble. It also gave me confidence to shape my own story and to break the rules sometimes.

ELB: We’d love to know what you’re currently working on! What’s next?

MM: At the moment I’m working on various short and long term projects. One of them is a story that I wrote and hope to publish one day. It deals with similar issues of identity and self-discovery, but in a very different way.

And now...Enchanted Lion's Ten Questions:

What is your favorite word?

English is not my native language, but recently I like the word rubbish.

What is your least favorite word?

Empower (and moist, obviously)

Do you have real life heroes?

My life heroes are constantly changing. In the last two weeks, they have been Moms to young children. Mothers with the flu (especially if the kids have the flu as well), mothers who give both of their kids a ride on a bicycle, mothers with children during holiday time. I’m not a parent and this looks beyond impossible. As a pattern, it’s normally people who are challenging themselves and constantly growing.

What natural gift, other than what you have, would you most like to possess?

To sing! And patience.

What is your life motto?

I don’t have any but if I did, it would probably be "I’d rather regret what I’ve done than what I haven't."

What is your idea of success?

Independence––financial but mainly mobility independence. Not to be tied to one place.

Are rituals part of your creative process?

I always clear my desk before or after a project that takes more than a few days. Not as a ritual, just because I need the fresh start.

What does procrastination look like for you?

Oh no! This is horrid. Are you allowed to ask that? :) It happens when I find it hard to concentrate, normally between tasks, and then I jump between The Guardian to celebrity gossip websites. I also Google very random stuff, as probably most illustrators do. The other day I was illustrating a scene in the zoo, so I searched what a person should do when they encounter a bear (tip: do not play dead).

How would you describe your monsters?

Laziness and doubt. Oh, and the lady from The Ring.

What does earthly happiness look like to you?

I’m afraid I have only clichés to offer here.

A Conversation with Masha Manapov, the Storyteller Behind Ariba