After two years of complete social isolation, not only in Bulgaria, as you know Italy was one of the first countries affected by the Covid pandemic with the highest incidence, war followed on the doorstep of Europe. In our modern history and in the minds of our last two generations, the world has hardly experienced such a painful emotional and physical crisis. Children suffer the most, remember that.
Therefore, there is no way that the second day of the Bologna International Book Fair could not be dedicated to children in need. Three of the conferences today were dedicated to the painful topics that no one would like to see in conjunction with the word “children”, but, alas, this is our world in the 21st century, far from what we imagined. And before I continue, perhaps many of you will ask yourself the question “What do the topics of war, the pandemic, poverty and politics have in common at a book fair, where merchants are looking for goods and workers are looking for employers?”
Yes, on the one hand this is really a forum for trade, I can’t help but feel sorry for myself, it will be like this until the moment when our bread depends on the trade of our own labor – we will be dependent on the buying and selling of books and intellectual craft. But on the other hand, all these fairs are the place where these problems are given publicity, partners, donors, volunteers are found, libraries are created, exhibitions travel and people from all over the world get to know each other in one place. Our freedom of speech and the press are so limited that if we limit them here too, we can safely stop talking, right?
That is why the first big discussion today was entitled “Childhood aside: reading projects in vulnerable conditions”. Elena Pasoli opened the round table, saying that we have all understood over the past two years how important it is to be a community.
The Chair of the IBBY Trust, Patzy Aldana, who announced yesterday that IBBY will include the children of Ukraine in its trust, said that the organization was founded precisely because of the consequences of World War II on children around the world. “We are all here to work together,” she said, before giving the floor to Zohreh Ghaeni from Iran. I will not tell you the whole conference, because you can watch it on the BCBF YouTube channel, but I would like to draw your attention again that Bulgaria has NOT been a member of IBBY since 1992 and we do not have an organization that works in a similar direction and international cooperation in our country.
The second event that I would like to draw attention to today is the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Awards ceremony. This year, the nominations from Bulgaria, you know the nominating body for our country is the Children's Book Foundation, were Kapka Kaneva (illustrator) and Yulia Spiridonova (author). The Astrid Lindgren Award was established in 2002 and this year celebrates its twentieth anniversary. The slogan of the award, as Kajsa Ravin (Director of the Swedish Arts Council) herself recalled, is "every child has the right to beautiful stories." She expressed "deep solidarity with the people of Ukraine, as well as with all those who fight for democracy, artistic freedom and human rights in Ukraine, but also in Russia." Of course, Astrid Lindgren herself is not only an incredible author who gave children beautiful stories, but also a fighter for rights and freedom.
The winner of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize for 2022 is Eva Lindström. She is an author and illustrator of her own books, born in 1952 in Sweden and one of the most recognizable authors in the contemporary children's world. "Eva Lindström's enigmatic pictorial world is constantly transforming. Trees move abroad, dogs acquire gigantic proportions and objects disappear only to reappear. With quick brush strokes and dense colors, Eva creates an ambiguous dialogue between text and image. The boundary between children, adults and animals is constantly shifting. With great gravity and wild humor, they struggle with the eternal questions: Who are we? Where are we going? Who took our hats?" - says the jury about her.
Today I will end with the meeting with the Israeli writer and screenwriter Etgar Keret and with the words of Elena Pasoli “For me, this is the most important event of this fair. Because it is so significant. (…) When this terrible thing happened, we decided that we wanted to publicize it during the Bologna Fair, because it is the first fair after the events. And we immediately thought that we wanted to have a space, a meeting, a conversation. The first stupid thing we thought was that we would sit down with all the directors, we would say how much we sympathize. Blah-blah-blah. It doesn’t work like that! That’s why we decided to invite a great, significant author to tell us what peace means!”.
The meeting was so personal, so intimate and light that I felt simultaneously captivated by the conversation and uncomfortable, as if I were doing nothing. Etgar Keret began his conversation by saying that until a few hours ago he had no idea what he was going to say on this stage.
– I said “yes” because I want to support Ukraine – and he continued as calmly as if he were telling a children’s story. – But putting a flag on my Facebook page or coming to speak here in front of you doesn’t mean that I’m actually helping the people of Ukraine. If Zelensky could have exchanged my speech for a helmet or ammunition, he would have.
Listen to the story of an Israeli writer with Polish roots who believes in helping Ukraine… and not only…
And at that time, while bombs were falling in the east, on the other side of the Bologna Fiere, a conversation-campaign was taking place to raise funds for the printing of more children’s books in Ukrainian in Europe. Their goal is that while refugee children who have arrived in Europe have fun with the book characters, they will not lose touch with their home and language. One thing has impressed me very much in all the interviews, posts and appeals of refugees for the past almost a month (I will allow myself this personal digression) – their desire to return, their belief that everything will be over in a month or two. I want us to believe in this too! All the funds raised will be donated to the Ukrainian Book Institute. The press release was prepared by the Federation of European Publishers and was also translated into Ukrainian.
(In the photos below you can see the book The War: The Children Who Will Never Get to Read Books (My Bookshelf Publishing House, Kiev, 2022), a picture book created in a very short time by Masha Serdyuk and illustrated by Tatyana Kalyuzhna, the work was printed in Bologna under exceptional circumstances in a single copy.
Text: Milena Radeva
Photos: BCBF
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