Angry Scheffler slams Brexit’s effect on arts

Axel Scheffler may leave the UK in the wake of it enacting Article 50, the illustrator has told The Bookseller Daily at Bologna Children's Book Fair.

German-born Scheffler said: “The UK has been my home for the past 35 years, but something broke after the Brexit vote. I’m sad, disappointed and angry every day when I read the news. It’s been a big blow."

“It could make life very complicated and unpleasant. I would like to stay but I think about leaving more and more,” he continued, adding: “I feel that if I go, I won’t want to work for a British publisher again.”

The illustrator classes Scholastic and Macmillan, his primary publishers, as US and German  firms owing to their parent companies’ bases.

Scheffler, who hopes the decision will be overturned, said that if it becomes harder for Europeans to live and work in the UK, it “will have consequences for the creative arts”.

He warned the EU exit could endanger the UK’s “very healthy” picture-book publishing scene—“it is very interesting and vibrant; there is more risk-taking”—and also cautioned that many illustrators were struggling to make a living from their work.