This year Bologna will unite us not in the huge halls of Bologna Fiere, but in front of the screen of the home computer. And although all my tickets and reservations were canceled nearly a month before the fair, which I honestly admit I expect every year with mixed feelings, somehow the idea of being in Bologna, but at home in pajamas, I also accepted with mixed feelings.
There was an official opening, it was led by Maria Russo (Children’s Book Editor, New York Times), whom I have already mentioned when I presented the anniversary of the New York Times awards, and the topic (naturally) was the global pandemic and the resulting publishing chaos that befell us at the beginning of the year. The opening was attended by Elena Pasoli (Exhibition Manager di BCBF), Bodour Al Qasimi, (UAE), Sophie Giraud (France), Jack Jensen (USA), Cecilia Silva-Díaz (Spain-Venezuela), Gaia Stock (Italy), Sahar Tarhandeh (Iran), Roger Thorp (United Kingdom), Gita Wolf (India) and Zhang Yuntao (China). I will not repeat their words, because you can hear and see them in the video, but each of these publishers, representing their own country, centered their thesis around a few things: bookstores are closed; books are not being bought/sold at the moment; competition for distribution in 2020 is in online commerce; in Italy, 65% of the planned titles and 25% of those that have already entered the publishers' catalogs will not be published this year; in Iran, the lack of materials has a huge impact on the industry; in China, the domestic market is decisive; in the US and UK publishers are declaring "war" on Amazon (I assume you know about their print on demand option and Amazon CS); new titles in all countries will or already suffer from the severely shaken market, distribution, lack of media coverage, materials and tight budgets of everyone along the chain. However, Gaia Stock's words shocked me because on the one hand I say them every year during the fair, but it's another thing for someone to stand up and say them in front of the entire community: "In the future, we will become more selective in our selection. We publish too many books and we have had the feeling in recent weeks that it is easy... not exactly easy, but possible to observe when a book that we planned to publish is not needed. And we really need to feel when some books are important to be published as content for us, for the market and for the foreign market. And of course it is important to note that if we all start publishing less, then we will start buying fewer publishing rights, and this will also become a problem. The whole system will be disrupted."
But let’s move on to something more positive… As you know, one of the biggest awards in the world of children’s books is presented every two years during the Bologna Children’s Book Fair – this is the Hans Christian Andersen Award. Initially (of course) it was supposed to be presented in April in Bologna, then it became clear that it would happen in Moscow during the annual IBBY conference, the latest media information I received literally last week that the winners would be announced today (May 4, 2020), but the ceremony will be in Moscow next year. Here are the winners of the prize:
Here is the entire IBBY video, along with the final selection:
Bologna has always been synonymous with children's book illustration, so I can't help but share this news... The famous wall, on which I don't know if there is an illustrator in the world who hasn't hung their business card, flyer, poster or portfolio at least once, is online this year. I was a little annoyed that the artists are only presented with their name, country and title of the work, without any contacts, but... that's how they decided, that's how they did it. In our small Bulgaria section we find 13 names: Lilyana Dvoryanova, Milena Radeva, Stalker Since 1993, Anelia Nedkova, Denis Angelov, Bilyana, Mira Miroslavova, Borislava Madeit, Ina Hristova, Mateya Arkova, Milena Simeonova, Adriana Hristova, Slavena S.
I will not go into analysis and commentary on the huge number of artists who are included, I think there is literally milk from a chicken, so I leave you a link. I sincerely advise you NOT to open the Italy section ( :) ), because you will grow old in front of the monitor, the Russians have also taken up a large part of the platform, and fortunately or not… I did not see China.
Tomorrow's remote online day will be dedicated to illustration, illustrators and exhibitions with more pictures. As I promise every year – I try to follow everything that happens (not only) in this huge forum and to make you part of the events, alas, this time without pictures. To be honest… something inside me wanted to be in Bologna this year too. All this pushing, shoving, pictures, people, events, that terrible red carpet, my scuffed heels at the end of the third day, the pain in my shoulders from the camera and computer all the time, getting up early, bright colors, confusing flights and the long subway ride home, but… the atmosphere! It is what makes things real!
Milena :)
Add comment