PHOTO: Cornelia Funke, celebrated author and illustrator, known for her vivid imagination and powerful tales that bridge fantasy and emotional truth.
Imagination Storytelling Wonder And The Power Of Books
Cornelia Funke reflects on her journey from social worker to bestselling author, returning to Inkworld, collaborating with her daughter, and the visual and emotional roots of her enduring stories.
Cornelia Funke has long enchanted readers with the spellbinding texture of her imagination—worlds woven not just with ink and paper, but with empathy, wild wonder, and an irrepressible sense of play. Born in a small town in Westfalia, surrounded by meadows and water castles, she has journeyed far from her early dreams of space travel. Instead, she has charted an expansive literary universe grounded in the emotional landscapes of children and the secret doors of fairy tales.
Her years as a social worker were not a detour but a deepening of her insight into the hearts of young people. That experience lingers in the shadows and light of her characters, whose resilience and compassion often reflect the most overlooked corners of real life. From the canals of The Thief Lord to the wild skies of Dragon Rider, her stories offer not just escape, but reflection—always daring readers to see the world, and themselves, more vividly.
In her return to the Inkworld with The Colour of Revenge and the verdant enchantments of The Green Kingdom, Funke continues to resist the notion that fantasy must be removed from the real. Instead, she roots magic in the earth, in language, and in human connection—an imaginative continuum where past, present, and possibility blur.
There is a rare joy in hearing a storyteller who not only sees but also listens. In Funke’s work, and in her generous approach to readers, the line between author and fellow traveller dissolves—and we are all invited to walk a little farther into the woods.
In “The Colour of Revenge,” you revisit the Inkworld after many years. What inspired you to return to this world, and how did it feel to re-enter it?
I spend more than ten years in Inkworld writing the first three books so it felt like returning to a place I know very very well. In fact I never quite left Inkwolrd as it is the same world my Reckless-series is set in – just 500 years earlier.
“The Green Kingdom” has reached the New York Times bestseller list. What themes or messages do you hope readers take away from this book?
I find delivering messages to my readers to be quite disrespectful. I consider them fellow travelers who go on a journey with me and will ask the same questions and look for the same answers. With Green Kingdom I do hope though that I can instill the love for plants in some of them and open a few eyes to the magic of the Green Kingdom.Of course readers will also find my belief in diversity in the story, in friendship and together, but all those ideas and thoughts are just reflections of the way I see the world. Every story always also reflects how its author sees the world.
The “Reckless” series explores darker fairy tale elements. How do you balance traditional folklore with your own imaginative twists?
As traditional storytelling is also just woven from imaginative twists that comes quite easily. In fact I enjoy it vastly writing Reckless that readers sometimes guess which tales I invented and which tales are traditional tales. I am thrilled when the ones I came upfront with cannot be distinguished from those.
Your daughter Anna translated “The Colour of Revenge.” How did this collaboration influence the storytelling and translation process?
My daughter Anna has been my strictest and most insightful editor from the age of 5 and she is by now such a master of that craft that I cannot imagine writing a book without her insights. She had a vast influence on how Color of Revenge was in the end told, so it felt very natural that she also translated the story into English. When I read the first pages of her translation I had the most ridiculously wide smile on my face, as she had caught my voice so completely! At the same time she adds the spice of youth and really speaking both German and English – which not every translator does.
As both an author and illustrator, how does your visual art influence your narrative writing, particularly in your fantasy worlds?
First of all – for me all fantasy worlds are just variations of our world and even the best ones will never quite reach the magic and diversity of the world we live in. But of course fantasy has the advantage that it is a very visual storytelling- an art that almost got lost in modern literature – so it proves very helpful to be an illustrator. I see what I write about, I see and smell, hear and touch it. Which hopefully enables my readers to do the same.
“The Thief Lord” and “Dragon Rider” remain beloved classics. What do you think contributes to their enduring popularity among readers?
You have to ask my readers:)
Your early work as a social worker inspired your writing. How do those experiences continue to shape your characters and stories today?
We are all raised in social bubbles that give us a certain experience of childhood. Mine was sheltered lower middle class. Only my social work introduced me to children who lived under much rougher circumstances and taught me that they often cope with much grace ad compassion. All my writing is still a love song to them.
What advice would you offer to aspiring authors seeking to create compelling and imaginative stories?
Always have a notebook and a pen with you as the best ideas come always at times when you can’t write them down.
Be curious. About the outside and the inside. And remind yourself that storytelling is a sacred craft as it can grant comfort and hope in the face of darkness and all the challenges the human existence brings.
