Jens Rassmus

Jens Rassmus was born in Kiel in 1967. From 1992 to 1998, he studied illustration at the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg and at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee, Scotland. He has been working as an illustrator and author since 1996. His first children’s book, Bauer Enno und seine Kuh Afrika (Enno the Farmer and his Cow Africa), was published in 1997. It is a story about staying and leaving, about here and there, and about the longing to leave one’s own world behind. Rassmus’s protagonists are mostly children or animals. His stories are about dreams and adventures, the strange and the fantastical, and the fact that things are often different from what we expect or turn out differently from what we planned. In his new book Verwickelte Geschichten. Alle Abenteuer vom Doktorfisch…und vom Kofferfisch! (2024), he brings together previously published and new stories about the Doctor Fish. Since 2024, he has been a lecturer in illustration at the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts in Kiel.

Rassmus has received numerous awards, including the 2007 Austrian Children’s and Young People’s Book Prize for Der Großvater im rostroten Ohrensessel, in 2008 for Der karierte Käfer and in 2019 for Das Nacht-Tier, as well as the German Youth Literature Prize in 2025 for Regentag. He has also been nominated for the German Youth Literature Prize in 2026 for Der Sternsee.

Bauer Enno und seine Kuh Afrika
Aarau, 1997

Das Vollmondorchester
Aarau, 1999

Der karierte Käfer
Salzburg, 2007

Chlodwig
with Will Gmehling
Wuppertal, 2018

Verwickelte Geschichten. Alle Abenteuer vom Doktorfisch… und vom Kofferfisch!
Vienna, 2024

Der Sternsee
with Will Gmehling
Wuppertal, 2025