Irmina

About Barbara Yelin

Barbara Yelin was born in 1977 in Munich and studied illustration at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. She first came to prominence as a graphic artist in France before gaining recognition in Germany for her book Gift (with a script by Peer Meter) published in 2010. Yelin has worked as a comics artist for newspapers and international anthologies but her work largely focuses on research-based historical and biographical graphic novels mainly about women. Supported by Goethe-Institute Israel Yelin commemorated the life of the Israeli actress Channa Maron published in 2016 under the title Vor allem eins: Dir selbst sei treu (This Above All: To Thine Own Self Be True). In 2017 in collaboration with author Thomas von Steinaecker she drew The Summer of Her Life a poetic graphic novel about Gerda the resident of a retirement home. Her most recent work is a graphic narrative created in dialogue with Holocaust survivor Emmie Arbel. It was published in 2022 in the acclaimed anthology But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust. In 2016 Yelin was declared Best German-language Comics Artist at the International Comic-Salon Erlangen and was nominated for an Eisner Award for Irmina in the following year. She lives and works in Munich.