Benjamin Chaud, born January 29, 1975 in Briançon (Hautes-Alpes), is a French artist, illustrator and author of children's literature.

Benjamin Chaud studied drawing at the School of Applied Arts in Paris and at the Higher School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg under Claude Lapointe. He lived for several years in Marseille, then in Paris, and works on Die in the Drôme, in a workshop that he shares with another author and illustrator, Gaëtan Dorémus. In 2018, he explains: “I was in my class in Strasbourg. The presence of the other motivates us, we support each other and give each other advice. "

He starts in the youth press, stating, in 2018: “I stopped because it was necessary to be too reactive and I didn't necessarily like how it was printed. ". The first albums of his were released in the late 1990s, when he was 24 years old.

He is the author and illustrator of youth albums such as Une chanson d'ours in 2011, in which Papa Ours and Petit Ours appear. His adventures continue in Coquillages et petit our (2012), Poupoupidours (2014) and then in Pompon our dans les bois (2018). He is also the author and illustrator since 2017 of the Les Petits Marsus series, inspired by André Franquin's famous Marsupilami. It is published by Éditions Hélium.

He is the illustrator of several children's authors, published by various children's publishers, including the series El petit elephant Pomelo, based on texts by Ramona Bádescu, begun in 2002, and which includes fifteen titles. In 2016, about his work with Ramona Bádescu, he explains: “We work side by side, step by step: we exchange ideas of adventures, drawings, texts; we get lost, we laugh, we think without saying anything and little by little the story takes shape. "Several titles in the Grapefruit series are part of the "Ideal Youth Library" of the National Children's Literature Center (BNF).

Among other things, she was inspired by an Italian feminist book, Rose Bombonne, by Adela Turin, illustrated by Nella Bosnia, published the year of her birth, in 1975. She stated, in June 2019: “I was completely fascinated by the pink pages. They were completely psychedelic experiences for me, because I went back to these pink pages, I was obsessed with this pink and with these elephants... which I took up again, already, in the Grapefruit series! " .

In 2019 he explains his work and indicates: “I really like working in the café [...]. In general I have to draw the same thing a thousand times before I find a drawing I like, I need to get lost a lot. [...] I also work very well on the train because it is impossible to get out of it and I only have that to do. "

Since 2005, he has also illustrated the series La fée Coquillette, written by Didier Lévy, which was adapted into a nine-episode animated series in 2009, as well as several titles by Davide Cali or Swedish author Eva Susso (sv).

In 2019 he started the Taupe et mulot series with the author illustrator Henri Meunier. For the first opus Les beaux jours, Michel Abescat writes in the Télérama newspaper: “three stories with crisp freshness as if they came out of the eternity of childhood [...] And two heroes of beautiful fantasy”.

From 2017 to 2020, he was selected four years in a row for the prestigious Swedish award, the Astrid-Lindgren Memorial Prize.