Arianna Papini – winner of the Andersen award for illustration 2018 – was born and lives in Florence, where she studied art and architecture and since 1988, after some experiences in technical and editorial studies, she has been editorial and artistic director of the house for 25 years Fatatrac publisher, also taking care of the graphic layout. She has collaborated with the course of Industrial Design of the Faculty of Architecture of Florence, where she graduated with a thesis on book-game design and from 2004 to 2007 taught Theory of Formal Languages, organizing each year the exhibition of books game designed by the students of his course.

Advisor to the Italian Aalto / Viipuri Committee, she organized the exhibition and seminars on Alvar Aalto at the Marino Marini Museum and the Seeber Bookshop in Florence.

She is among the organizers of the exhibition The Miracles and the Holy Face of Jesus, a large collective work in the form of a polyptych on display at the Venice Fenice in September 2011, today on permanent display at the Sanctuary of the Vision of Camposampiero.

Art therapist, she carried out the four-year post-graduate specialization at the International Art Therapy School of Bologna, carrying out internships aimed at mother-child settings and trauma. At her studio in Florence he holds therapeutic, self-narrative and artistic groups with people of all ages.

She holds courses at schools, Masters, institutions, cooperatives and libraries throughout Italy, and in particular at the International School of Illustration of Sàrmede. Since 2007 he has been teaching Illustration on the Isia of Urbino.

She is a freelance writer, painter, illustrator, trainer, teacher and art therapist.

She has written and illustrated a hundred books for La Nuova Italia, Edicolors, Fatatrac, Lapis Edizioni, Città Aperta, Carocci Editore, Ananke, Avvenire, Coccole Books, Liberty, Kalandraka, Donzelli publisher, Carthusia Edizioni, Rrose Selavy, with whom he has won numerous awards, including the Andersen Award and the Compostela Award. Some of his books are coed together in France, Spain, England, Greece, Portugal and Taiwan.