I’m Willing to Learn to Tremble | Selected Illustrations

I’m Willing to Learn to Tremble — Nonfiction Book
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Author : Guo Shuang
Illustrator : Beibei Nie
Production : Yuefu Books
Publisher : Horizon Media (Shanghai People’s Publishing House)
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I’m Willing to Learn to Tremble is a nonfiction book written by Chinese author Guo Shuang, subtitled Ten Childhood Stories.
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Drawing on her childhood memories of German folk tales, primarily the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the author travels through Germany and documents ten standalone true stories of ordinary people living in the Black Forest region.
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A distinctive feature of this book: each real-life narrative takes its title and core conceptual inspiration from a classic German folk or Grimm fairy tale. Instead of retelling those old fairy tales, Guo Shuang uses these familiar fairy-tale frameworks as a starting point to explore contemporary, true human lives, drawing on motifs such as The Frog Prince and the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
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These narratives explore childhood, loss, identity, longing and the quiet struggles hidden within everyday life. Rather than superficial travel observations, the book enters the inner lives of its subjects, reflecting on universal human experiences through their life stories.
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This project features my black-and-white interior illustrations created for the book. I completed ten illustrations in total for publication, and six selected works are featured here to showcase the project. Each artwork stands alone, responding to one separate story within the collection and echoing the fairy-tale motifs woven into the text. One illustration received a Merit Award in the 3×3 Show No.15 and was published in the 3×3 Annual.
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The upload includes finished illustrations, sketch studies, and documentation of the printed book.