• Publisher: VigeVageKnjige
• 280 pages
• Author: Katarina Šeme
• Ilustrator: Katarina Šeme
• Genre: Potopis
• Original title: Sweet thorns from Sumatra

SWEET THORNS FROM SUMATRA is a travelogue-style autobiographical graphic novel in which we follow the main storyteller on her one-year scholarship in Indonesia. Katarina is a young design student who, when she obtains the scholarship, imagines living in that region of the world would be full with tropical flavors, stunning vulcanoes, and exciting life by the ocean. Due to significant cultural and religious differences, however, studying in a little town in the middle of Sumatra quickly becomes a major personal challenge, calling into question her beliefs about religion, the world, and people. Conversations with residents, sceneries and events from her excursions throughout the island, as well as her own sentiments and impressions, are all honestly expressed in black and white drawings, with the goal of presenting a personal perspective.

About the author / illustrator

Katarina Šeme

Katarina Šeme (1993) is an illustrator and a 2D computer animation artist. Drawing cartoons combines both of these disciplines. She graduated from the Department of Visual Communications at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana in  2017. She worked as a graphic designer in Slovenia and Cyprus, and a scholarship allowed her to study traditional art and culture in Indonesia for a year. After Indonesia she relocated to Brussels, where she continued to work as a graphic designer. She established her own company after returning to Slovenia in 2020, and she has been working in the disciplines of animation and art ever since.