Books for Breakfast with Aleksandar Zograf and Axel Halling

"For me there is a sort of overwhelming power of drawing. It is something that everyone can do." In a conversation between Pančevo (Serbia) and Berlin with Axel Halling, graphic novelist Aleksandar Zograf reveals what drawing means to him, why he finds the combination of image and text so powerful and where he draws material for his poignant stories. This is a discussion on graphic novels in Southeast Europe and on Zograf’s recently published translation of “The Partisan Post” (published by Bahoe Books in 2020 and translated into German by Ivan Petrovic). Alexander Zograf (aka Saša Rakezić), born in Pančevo in 1963, is based in Belgrade where he works as a graphic novelist and illustrator, among others for the weekly “Vreme”. His works have been translated into over 15 languages, published by such renowned houses as the Fantagraphics in the USA and L'Association in France. Axel Halling, born in Birkesdorf in 1972, studied Eastern European Studies, Hungarology as well as the East- and Southeastern European History in Berlin, Paris and Budapest. He worked for a number of years as a cultural manager in the German-Hungarian cultural exchange in Berlin, Budapest and Pécs, freelanced for a comics publisher and has co-founded the German Comics Association where he also serves as a board member and project manager. At the same time he has since 2008 worked as a foundation advisor at the Bürgerstiftungen Deutschlands im Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen e.V. and since 2016 as a coordinator of a mentoring project called “Chance Partnerships” which supports refugees among other things.