HCAA 2022 Author Nominees - Profiles

María Cristina Ramos is a writer, teacher and publisher with a unique poetic voice and a rich creative universe. She was born in 1952 in San Rafael in Mendoza and at the age of 23 won the Leopoldo Marechal first prize in the region of Cuyo for her selection of poems. Three years later, she moved to Neuquén in Patagonia, where she completed a teaching degree in literature. Her first book for children was the collection of poems, Un sol para tu sombrero (A sun for your hat, 1988) followed by the short stories, Las lagartis no vuelan (Lizards can’t fly, 1990) and Coronas y galeras (Crowns and top-hats, 1991), both of which were recognized at the Antoniorrobles Latin American Awards, organised by IBBY México. In 1997, De barrio somos (Our neighbourhood) was shortlisted for the Fundalectura award and Ruedamares, pirate de la mar bravia (Ruedamares, a pirate of the raging sea) was published. Her novel Mientras duermen las piedras (While the stones sleep) was shortlisted for the International Anaya Award in 2006. Since 2002, she has been running the publishing house Ruedamares. In addition, she has been a trainer in reading programmes both nationally and regionally and since 2017 has run Lecturas y navegantes (Reading and navigators), which is a training programme for the promotion of reading literature in public schools in Patagonia, sponsored by Fundación SM. Her experience in these workshops has culminated in her most recent non-fiction work, La casa del aire. Taller literario (The house in the air. A literary workshop). In 2016, she received the Premio Iberoamericano SM de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil. The jury commended “her craftsmanship and her profound respect for her readers, characters, and the reality she recreates, her genuine and independent authorial voice, and the subtle incorporation of values and cultural practices of indigenous people”. María Cristina Ramos has been nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award several times and was a Finalist in 2020. 

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Margaret Wild has published over 100 books, the majority being picture books, many of which have been widely awarded and translated, including her best-known story, Fox. She was born in 1948 in Eschowe, KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and grew up mainly in Johannesburg. After leaving school she worked as a journalist and in 1973 she emigrated to Australia where she completed her formal education at the Australian National University in Canberra. She settled in Sydney and worked as a freelance writer and began writing books for her own children as well as managing children’s books for several publishers. Her picture books touch the emotions of both children and adults and though her themes have been said to be unconventional for children’s books, they invariably offer an uplifting, and ultimately joyful, perspective on life. Among her many interests are the homeless, imprisoned, dying, lost and the aged and such social concerns as bullying, divorce and Alzheimer’s disease. Her picture books resonate with tenderness, love and comfort for the very youngest. She has written two verse novels and one prose novel for young adults, and her title Jinx (2001) has been translated into nine languages. She has won the CBCA Picture Book of the Year Award three times – in 1990 for The Very Best of Friends, illustrated by Julie Vivas; in 2000 for Jenny Angel illustrated by Anne Spudvilas; and in 2001 for Fox, illustrated by Ron Brooks. Fox (2000) is one of her most awarded titles, having also won the Best Children’s Book Queensland Premier’s Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award, and the Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children’s Literature in 2001. Fox was also included in the 2002 IBBY Honour List for illustration, as well as the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2004. She has won several awards for her contribution to children’s literature in Australia, most recently she was awarded the 2020 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

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Radio journalist and writer, Heinz Janisch is one of Austria’s most well-known authors of children’s books. Born 1960 in Güssing, Burgenland, he studied German philology and publishing at the University of Vienna. He has worked for Austrian broadcasting (radio) and has been editor-in-charge of the series Menschenbilder (Pictures of people) since 1984. He also writes plays and dance pieces for modern theatre, including adapting classic works for a children’s audience. Since 1989, he has written numerous picture books, poetry books and tales for children and adults as well as film scripts. He has said, “nothing is too small for literature” and this is reflected in his work that illuminates the special in seemingly trivial objects and features of daily life, and in his preference for poems, miniatures and aphorisms. He has won the the Kinderbuchpreis der Stadt Wien twelve times between 1995 and 2011. His works have been included in the IBBY Honour List: in 2000 for Der Sonntagsriese (The Sunday giant, 1998) and in 2004 for Es gibt so Tage (Some days are like this one, 2001). He won the Bologna Ragazzi Award in 2006 for Rote Wangen (Red cheeks, 2005). Several of his works have won the Österreichischer Staatspreis für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, including Die Wolke in meinem Bett (The cloud in my bed, 2007), Der König und das Meer (The king and the sea, 2008), Finns Land (Finn’s country, 2008), Jumbojet (Jumbo jet, 2009) and Rita. Das Mädchen mit der roten Badekappe (Rita. The girl with the red swimming cap, 2012). Heinz Janisch also conducts readings and workshops on literary and creative writing at schools and libraries, as well as creative workshops for handicapped young artists. In 2020, he was awarded a lifetime achievement award – the Grosser Preis der Deutschen Akadamie für Kinder- und Jugendliteratur.  

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Thomas Lavachery is a writer and illustrator of adventure and fantasy stories for children and young adults. Born in Brussels in 1966, he began drawing comics at an early age, with his first drawings published when he was eighteen. He studied art history, following in the footsteps of his grandfather who was a famous archaeologist and ethnologist. He joined a film production company, writing scripts and then directing documentaries set in China and Easter Island. In 2005, he published Bjorn le Morphir (Bjorn the Morphir), an adventure novel based on a story he told his son, which was selected for the 2008 IBBY Honour List. The adventures of Bjorn are told in eight volumes and also have been adapted as comic books. Books in the series have received the Prix Libbylit and the Prix Sorcières in 2005 and 2006, respectively. His book Ramulf also received Prix Libbylit in 2015. He has written and illustrated a number of books, such as Jodo de la jungle (Jojo of the jungle, 2010), Ma famille verte (My green family, 2017) as well as novels for young adults, such as Tor et les gnomes (Tor and the gnomes, 2015). His most recent books include Rumeur (Rumour, 2019) and Le voyage de Fulmir (Fulmir’s journey, 2019). His stories explore timeless themes of power, intolerance, traditions and their loss, and rumours. His heroes are usually anti-heroes (Bjorn, Ramulf, Tor, Fulmir), who rise up to make the most of their surroundings and become dignified human beings. Thomas Lavachery received the Grand prix triennial de literature de jeunesse de la Féderation Wallonie-Bruxelles in 2018.

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Marina Colasanti has written poetry, short stories and prose for children, but she is best known for her unique fairy tales accompanied by her own illustrations. She was born in 1937 in Asmara (then Abyssinia, now Eritrea) and moved to Brazil at the age of eleven, after having lived in Libya and Italy. She studied painting and etching at the National School of Arts and began working as a writer and journalist for a major Brazilian newspaper. She had already published two books of fiction and was editor of the children’s section of the newspaper when she published her first book for children and young people, Uma idea toda azul (A true blue idea, 1979), which isa series of innovative illustrated fairy tales. The book received many awards and was published in several Latin American countries as well as in Spain and France. Depth in content and rich poetic language are the trademarks of her literary works for children and young people. Her most important titles for children include Ana Z. aonde vai você? (Ana Z. Where are you going? 1993) and Longe como o meu querer (Far like my dear one, 1997), both of which she illustrated, as well as A moça tecelã (The girl weaver, 2004) and Breve história de um pequeno amor (Brief story about a little love, 2013). Several of her books have won major literary awards in Brazil including the Origenes Lessa Award – Best Fiction for Young People and the Jabuti Award. She has also received recognition as a translator from Spanish and Italian: her Portuguese translation of María Theresa Andruetto’s Stefano (2014) was included in the 2016 IBBY Honour List. Marina Colasanti was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2016, 2018 and 2020. $

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Angèle Delaunois has written non-fiction, novels and picture books on cultural and social issues featuring children from around the world. Born in Granville, France in 1946, she moved to Canada in 1968. She earned a BA in plastic arts from the Université du Quebec à Trois Rivières and later moved to Montreal. She published educational and documentary books and adapted three well-known children’s stories – Les trois petits sagouins (The three little slobs), Junior Poucet (Junior thumb) and La chèvre de Monsieur Potvin (The goat of Monsieur Potvin). Thereafter, she focussed on writing and later publishing children’s fiction. She joined Les éditions Heritage as an editor and then in 1998 became literary director for youth collections at Les éditions Pierre Tisseyre. In 2004, she founded her own publishing company, Les Éditions de l’Isatis. Her own work includes picture books, short stories, novels, poems, stories and game books. She has received several prestigious awards among which the Governor General of Canada’s Literary Award for Young People’s Literature for her book Variations sur un même t’aime (Variations on the same love) in 1998. Her more recent stories address modern issues such as uprooting and refugees (Kissou, 2020), the environment (Les enfants de l’eau, Water’s children, 2017), war and landmines (Une petite bouteille jaune, The little yellow bottle, 2011), and love and consent, Une simple histoire d’amour (A simple love story, 2015). Une petite bouteille jaune was included in the 2011 IBBY Selection of Outstanding Books for Young People with Disabilities. 

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Over a long career, Jin Bo has integrated the essence of classical poetry in China and folk nursery rhymes, creating elegant new poetry classics for children. Born in Beijing in 1935, he was raised by his mother. His father had left the family to join the resistance, and at the outbreak of war he fled to the countryside with his mother to live with an uncle. His contact with life on a farm and early folktales from his mother instilled a love for stories and nature. In 1957, he was admitted to the Chinese Literature Department of Beijing Normal College and he began collecting and organising folk nursery rhymes and creating short poems for children, that were later set to music. After the Cultural Revolution, he was invited to lecture in the field of music literature. He continued to collect children’s nursery rhymes and writing his own elegant and musical poetry and lyrical fairy tales. To date, Jin Bo has published over 250 works including poetry, fairy tales, novels, prose and plays for children. His best-known works include the full-length fairy tales Woodee’s Adventure (2010) and Tracing the Little Green Men (2000), the poetry collection When the Sun Spreads Wings (2013), and the prose collection Tingting’s Tree (2015). He has won numerous awards including the National Outstanding Children’s Literature Award three times. Jin Bo has noted “not only has children’s literature helped me overcome the difficulties and sadness of my childhood, it has allowed me to preserve childlike innocence my whole life, giving me strength and hope.” Jin Bo was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1992.

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Anna Kouppanou is an author of children’s and young adult books, as well as teacher and academic writer on issues of childhood education and literature, and reading promotion. She completed a BA in Primary Education and an MA in Intercultural Education and Psychology at the University of Cyprus and then a PhD in Philosophy of Education at the Institute of Education at University College London, U.K. Her first children’s book, written when she was twenty-one, received first prize in the IBBY Cyprus competition for Contemporary Fairy Tales. This story became The Incredible Revelation of Sebastian Montefiore (2015), which was awarded the State Award for Young Adult Literature in 2016 and included in the 2018 IBBY Honour List. She continued to experiment with realist and fantasy literature on topics such as otherness, social equality, the environment and gender and body issues. These themes are reflected in her best-known works including The Argonauts of Time (2009), which also won the State Award for Young Adult Literature in 2010, The Day We Broke the World – The Club of the Lost Children (2019) and her most recent picture book, Phoebus and the Whale (2021). Anna Kouppanou has promoted the love of reading for many years, most recently through the “The Readers of the Suitcase” programme in schools and through creativity programmes that include storytelling and videos on creative writing.

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Andrus Kivirähk is a novelist and playwright and has written over a dozen books for children, including collections of stories, plays and novels. He has also been co-writer on many popular animated films. He was born 1970 in Tallin and studied journalism at Tartu University. After university, he worked for the major Estonian newspaper, Päevaleht, for the culture and humour sections and is currently editor of the op-ed section. He made his publishing debut in the satirical magazine Pikker 37 in 1984 and his first children’s book, Giraffe, was published in 1995. His unique humour is based on hyperbole and boundless fantasy. His stories are filled with unexpected situations and characters and dialogue soaked with wit, but underneath there is a moral message of the importance of friendliness, helpfulness, understanding, caring and tolerance. Andrus Kivirähk’s writings and short stories are usually about a child who feels lonely, but is able to deal with their loneliness with his or her imagination, as in Oskar ja asjad (Oscar and the things, 2015) and Tilda ja tolmuingel (Tilda and the dust angel, 2018), which was awarded the Good Children’s Book and the Children’s Literature Award in 2019. Flights of fancy and dreams are a vital part of life in other stories such as Sirli, Siim ja saladused (Sirli, Siim and the secrets, 1999) and the dog’s world in Leiutajateküla Lotte (Lotte from Gadgetville, 2006) which was included in the 2008 IBBY Honour List.

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Marie-Aude Murail has written nearly a hundred books for children and adults and is acclaimed in France and abroad for her novels with their memorable characters. She was born 1954 in Le Havre into a family of artists: her father is a poet, her mother a journalist, her brother is a composer, another brother and her sister are writers for children. She studied literature at the Sorbonne University, where her doctoral thesis was about the adaptation of classic novels for young readers. She started writing romances for women’s magazines and in 1985 she published her first novel for adults. She began writing tales, stories and novels published in the magazines of the Bayard Group, including Astrapi, J'aime Lire and Je Bouquine. In 1987, her first children’s novel, Mystère (Mystery), was published and from then on, she devoted herself to writing for children and young people. Marie-Aude Murail has a gift for creating characters that have a special bond with the reader. Her novels explore various themes of politics, history, love, adventure and fantasy and have been translated into more than 27 languages. She has been awarded most French prizes in the field of children’s books, including for Oh, Boy! (2015) and she was selected for the 2010 IBBY Honour List for the story Miss Charity (2008). In 2004, she was made Chevailier de la Légion d’honneur and in 2017 was promoted to Officier de la Legion d’honneur in recognition for her work in the field of children’s literature. In parallel with her writing, she is an activist for literacy and children’s reading skills as well as the rights of refugee and migrant children. Marie-Aude Murail has been nominated several times for the Hans Christian Andersen Award: she was a Finalist in 2018 and 2020, and her book, Simple (2004) has been included in the list of books highlighted by the Andersen Jury as an outstanding work.

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Andreas Steinhöfel, born 1962 in Battenburg, is currently one of the most popular German authors for children and young people. He also works as a screenwriter, critic and translator of English literature. His stories are unsentimental but still empathetic. His child heroes are mostly outsiders: the unparented, the unloved, the children of divorce, the emotionally homeless, the fatherless, the battered. They are often different in some way: too heavy, too slow, too rebellious, too clever. Nevertheless, they bravely set out again and again, laughing away their fear, unembarrassed and unapologetic. The author never betrays them, sharing their hope that everything will turn out fine. His bestseller Die Mitte der Welt (The centre of the world, 1998) has been translated into many languages and was shortlisted for the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1999 and included in the 2000 IBBY Honour List. Rico, Oskar und die Tieferschatten (Rico, Oskar and the deeper shadows, 2008) received among other awards, the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis and the Catholic Children’s Award and was included in the 2010 IBBY Honour List. He won the Erich Kästner Award for Literature in 2009 and then in 2013, the Sonderpreis ‘Gesamtwerk” desDeutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for his complete oeuvre. He is the first author of children´s and young adult literature to be a part of the German Academy of Language and Poetry.

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Maria Papayanni was born in 1964 in Larissa into a large family where everyone had the gift of telling stories. She studied Greek language and literature and worked as a journalist for radio, television, newspapers and magazines. When her first book was published in 2001, she left journalism and devoted herself to writing. She loves magical, traditional tales and narrates them to children when she visits schools. She also loves theatre and has penned librettos and verses for musical theatre. Her books (eight novels, ten picture books, ten early readers, two books with CDs) have enjoyed great success with children and have won numerous awards in Greece. Her best-known novels include The Lonesome Tree  (2010), which won the State Prize as well as As if by Magic (2006) and Shoes with Wings (2016), which both received the Greek IBBY Award. The picture book, Eiche ap’ola kai eiche polla (The king who had too much of everything, 2015) was included in the 2016 White Ravens catalogue. She believes that books have wings, “children know well that when the sentence ‘once upon a time’ is uttered the door opens to the place where anything may happen. And children need the world of imagination in order to understand everyday life and its difficulties.” 

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András Dániel, born 1966 in Budapest, is a writer and graphic artist. As a graphic artist, he has produced illustrations for newspapers, magazines and children’s books and is also a renowned contemporary painter. As a writer, he has created a world in children’s literature in which there are no boundaries and nothing is forbidden. His first book, Matild és Margaréta, avagy boszorkányok a Bármi utcából (Matilda and Margaret, or witches from Anything Street) was published in 2012, but it was his series of books about fantastic creatures called Kuflis that established his popularity, which were also made into animated films. Several other books have won prizes, including Mit keresett Jakab az ágy alatt? (What was Jake looking for under the bed? 2014), which was included in the 2015 White Ravens catalogue; És most elemondom, hogyan lifteztem (And now I will tell you about how I became an elevator boy, 2017), which was included in the 2018 IBBY Honour List for illustration, and A nyúlformájú kutya (The rabbit-shaped dog, 2018). His narratives and his illustrations are always inventive and arresting and though the characters encounter mishaps and misfortunes, they always find solutions to their problems. He has said, “I aim to stretch the boundaries of picture books. I try to create books that not only amuse but also surprise and sometimes even astonish the reader. I also like to play with the acts of writing and reading. My stories never have a moral, I love it when nothing in particular happens in a story. My characters often don’t do anything at all, they just are”.

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Since the publication of his first novel in 1997, Jamshid Khanian has created some of the most important and enduring contemporary Iranian children’s and young adult literature. He was born in 1961 in the city of Abadan in southwestern Iran. His father was a sailor and the stories of his adventures left a lasting impression on the young boy. He wrote his first short story The Boat, as a teenager after hearing of the sinking of his father’s cargo ship, though luckily his father survived. He later endured the siege of Abadan during the Iran-Iraq War, as well as military service in the war zone. He began to write professionally in the early 1980s, initially stories for adults, literary criticism and screenplays and from 1997, stories for children and young adults. His first novel, Children of the Earth, was based on ancient myths and folk beliefs, but his later work focuses on issues important to adolescents: love, peace, identity and intergenerational relations, as well as addressing issues such as death, war, immigration, loneliness, fear, discrimination and old age. His works, with their diversity of content, formal and technical innovation as well as artistic and aesthetic richness have created a unique narrative and literary world. His most important stories include The Beautiful Heart of Babur (2004), The Western Seventh Floor (2008), which was selected for the 2012 IBBY Honour List and The Romance of Jonah in the Fish’s Belly (2011), which was included in the 2014 IBBY Honour List. His most recent work, The Grand Wizard and the Queen of Colour Island (2019), was included in the 2020 White Ravens catalogue.

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Roberto Piumini is a writer, poet, translator and skilled narrator as an actor and chorister. He was born in 1947 in Edolo in the province of Bresica and studied Pedagogy at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan He worked as a secondary school teacher in Varese for six years before becoming an actor and puppeteer for three years. In 1978, he began his long and rich literary career, writing children's poems, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, stories, novels and plays, as well as translations. He has also written song texts and texts for musical theatre. He has recorded audio books of epic poems and tales written by himself and other authors. He was one of the creators of the RAI TV series, L’Albero Azzurro and has written and hosted the Radicchio and Il Mattino di Zucchero radio programme and still writes texts for music. He is known for his ability to create interesting, funny and simple stories, both in prose and in poetry, that are based on fantastic links between words, gestures and sound. His best-known books include: Storie dell’orizzonte (Horizon stories), which won the Italian Il Premio Andersen in 1983 and the Premio Le Palme d’oro in 1984; Lo stralisco (I take it off, 1990), Motu-iti (Small scale, 1993) and Mattia e il nonno (Mattia and Grandpa, 1993).  Roberto Piumini was a candidate for the 2020 Hans Christian Andersen Award and Lo stralisco was included in the list of books highlighted by the Jury as an outstanding work. 

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Joko Iwase has been a driving force in children’s literature in Japan, greatly expanding its range. She portrays the diversity and courage of young people who refuse to be defeated by difficulty, and go on to think for themselves and move forward. She was born (1950) and raised in Iwakuni City, Yamaguchi Prefecture, where the local US military base influenced her anti-war beliefs. After high school, she worked as a reporter for a local newspaper while attending classes of the children’s author, Imae Yoshitomo. She published her first book, Asa wa dandan miete kuru (Morning gradually appears), in 1977, which won the Newcomer of the Japanese Association of Writers for Children Award. This was the beginning of a long line of books written from the viewpoint of children and adolescents, portraying the absurdity of society and the unvarnished truth about problems facing modern families, including alienation, rebellion, loneliness and despair. She has written more than sixty books and won many major awards for Japanese children’s literature including the Sankei Children’s Book Award in 2015 for Kimi wa shiranai ho ga ii (Better you not know, 2014) and most recently the Tusbota Joji Literature Award in 2021 for Mo hitotsu no magarikado (Another turn in the road, 2019). Her works have been selected for the IBBY Honour List: Uso ja naiyo to Tanikawa-kun wa itta (Tanikawa said, “It’s not a lie”, 1991) in 1994, which also won the Sankei Children’s Book Award, and Atarashii ko ga kite (A new kid is here, 2014) in 2016. 

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Yi Hyeon has been praised as “a breath of fresh air in Korean creative children’s books for the new millennium,” and is recognized as a superlative storyteller. Born in Busan in 1970, she was an avid reader and then writer from a young age. She studied Korean language and literature at university and then had a variety of jobs while writing, including at an advertising agency and as a writer for an education television network, part-time teacher, owner of a bookstore and then private library and activist for migrant workers. In 2005, her short story, Trains, forever sounding their horns, always racing towards the light received the Chun Taeil Literary Award for Fiction. Her collection of short stories, Your Noodles will get all Mushy (2006) won the grand prize at Changbi Good Children’s Book awards and marked the start of her career as a children’s book author. Since then, she has written over 50 fiction and non-fiction titles, several of which have won awards, including the young adult novel Our Scandal (2007), the science fiction book series Planet of Robots (2010), the historical novel 1945, Cheolwon (2012), and the picture book I’m Opportunity, a Mars Exploration Rover (2019). She has crossed stories and genres to experiment with folk tales, history, sports, science, fantasy, martial arts and mystery. She has also travelled widely and incorporated these experiences into her works, such as Wanini the Green Lioness (2015), an adventure fantasy inspired by Serengeti National Park in Tanzania.

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Fatima Sharafeddine is writer, translator and publisher for children and young adults. She was born 1966 in Beirut and studied Early Childhood Education at Lebanon American University, earning a BA in 1989. She continued her studies and received an MA in Educational Theory and Practice in 1993 and an MA in Modern Arabic Literature in 1996. She worked as a pre-school teacher and taught Arabic language and culture classes at Rice University in Houston, USA. In 2001, she moved to Brussels and focussed on writing for children in Arabic. She manages to capture the beauty and musicality of literary Arabic in her stories in a way that children and young adults can understand and she addresses issue relevant to all young people including acceptance, bullying, peer pressure, anger and fear, as well as specific issues such as war. She also writes on topics that are still taboo in Arabic literature for children and young people, such as drug use, domestic violence and anorexia. Her book, There is War in my City, was published in 2006 and was translated into French in 2008. Other books that have received a wide audience include the young adult novels, Faten (2010), which was translated into English, Italian, Norwegian and Turkish, and Ghadi and Rawan (2013), which was translated into English. She has received several awards including the Etisalat Award in 2017 for Dar Alsaqi (Cappucino, 2017) and her books have been included the IBBY Honour List: Layla wa Al Himar (Layla and the donkey, 2014) in 2016, and in 2010 for the quality of her translation of Uridu An Asshar Wa Lan Azhab Lil-nawn (I am not sleepy and I will not go to bed, by Lauren Child).  

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Tonke Dragt is a writer of fairy tales, sagas and adventures, as well as fantasies set in the past and the future, taking the reader to “the place on the other side of the door”. Born in 1930 in Batavia (now Jakarta), her childhood was spent in Indonesia until she was twelve years old, then she spent three years in a Japanese internment camp while her father was a prisoner of war. After the war, her family was reunited and moved to the Netherlands. She showed talent as an artist and was admitted to the Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague. She became an art teacher, telling stories to her unruly students so they would concentrate on drawing, and wrote and illustrated books in the evening. Her work as an artist has remained crucial in her life, and she has illustrated most of her own books, making colourful and intricate collages. At a time when realism was the norm for children’s books, she wrote long fantasy and science fiction stories and finally in 1961 her first book, Verhalen van de tweelingbroers (The goldsmith and the master thief) was published. Her second book, De brief voor de koning (The letter for the King), was published in 1962 and became a bestseller. She was awarded the Dutch State Prize for Children’s and Youth Literature for her collected works in 1976 and received a knighthood in 2001. In 2004, Tonke Dragt was awarded the Griffel der Griffels (an award for the best Dutch children’s book of the past fifty years) for De brief voor de koning, which was translated into English in 2014 and has recently been made into a television series. Her other acclaimed works include De Zevensprong (A song of seven, 1966). De torens van februari (The towers of February, 1973) and Als de sterren zingen (When the stars are singing, 2017).

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Marcin Szczygielski (born 1972 in Warsaw) is a writer and graphic designer. He is the author of theatrical plays as well as novels for adults and young adults. He worked as art director for Latarnik publishing house and his graphic art was published in several Polish journals. His fictional debut was the humorous adult novel PL-Boy in 2003 and his first young adult novel, Omega (2009), introduced the magic, supernatural events and characters that are at the crux of the secondary worlds in his novels. His literary worlds are usually constructed around intensely experienced events: whether historical, Arka Czasu (Rafe and the ark of time, 2013), or contemporary, Omega, fantastic Czarny Mlyn (The black mill, 2010) or realistic Za niebieskimi drzwiami, (Behind the blue door, 2010) and Teatr Niewidzialnych Dzieci (The theatre of invisible children, 2016). His stories connect the reader with danger, risk, change and anomaly and bring about transformations after which the world can never be the same as before. His protagonists are, however, never passive and bravely face the challenges. Szczygielski has received over twenty awards and distinctions in Poland and abroad for his work. Four of his books have been distinguished in The Book of the Year Contest organized by the Polish Section of IBBY and Za niebieskimi drzwiami was selected for the 2012 IBBY Honour List. He was also awarded first prize by the Astrid Lindgren competition organized by ABC XXI All of Poland Reads to Kids Foundation three times. Marcin Szczygielski was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2018 and 2020. 

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Sergey Makhotin is a writer, poet, and author of books for children as well as editor of children's programmes on Radio Russia. Born 1953 in Sochi, he studied at the Leningrad Institute of Film Engineers and later graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow. He has had various jobs, working for television, paving roads and editing a legal scientific journal. While studying, he began writing poetry, first for adults and then children. His first children’s poem, Puppy, was published in 1979 and he has published several poetry collections, including Whom am I like? (2003), which won the Samuil Marshak Prize in 2004. He has written detective stories for children, novels for young adults, biographies of famous artists and retold classics of foreign literature for children as well as, more recently, short educational stories, such as Walks in the Wood (2017), about the trees, plants, berries and animals. His style of lyricism, irony and philosophical melancholy is most evident in his book of stories, The grumble virus (2006), which won the national children’s book award, Scarlet Sails in 2007, and was included in the 2008 IBBY Honour List. In 2011, he was the winner of the Korney Chkovsky Prize for his contribution to Russian children’s literature. He was the author of the message for the 2017 International Children's Book Day which was sponsored by IBBY Russia. He has also devoted many years to children’s journalism through newspapers, magazines and radio stations and is currently the editor of children’s broadcasting at Radio of Russia in St Petersburg.  

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Peter Svetina is an author of short stories, novels, picture books and poetry for children, young adults and adults. He also translates poetry and children’s literature from English, German, Croatian and Czech and works as an editor for poetry and literature textbooks. His poetry and literature for children is distinctive as it combines nonsense and realism. Born in 1970 in Ljubljana, he studied Slovene Language and Literature at the University of Ljubljana, where he obtained a PhD in 2001 in early Slovenian Literature. Since 2007, he has been a lecturer at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria. His literary debut was the picture book O mrožku, ki si ni hotel striči nohtov (About the little walrus who refused to cut his nails, 1999), which served as the basis for a puppet play, a path later followed by many of his works. His children’s works include the picture book Klobuk gospoda Konstantina (Mr Constantine’s hat, 2007), winner of the Original Slovenian Picture Book Award in 2008; Modrost nilskih konjev (Hippopotamus wisdom, 2010), which won a Golden Pear Award and was included in the 2011 White Ravens collection, as well as Čudežni prstan (The magic ring, 2011), which was included in the 2013 White Ravens selection and the poetry collections Domače naloge (Home works, 2014). Ropotarna (The lumber room) received the Golden Pear Award and the Večernica Award in 2013 and was selected for the 2016 IBBY Honour List. Peter Svetina was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2018 and was a Finalist for the 2020 award. Ropotarna was included in the list of books highlighted by the Andersen Jury as an outstanding work. He was author of the message for International Children’s Book Day in 2020, sponsored by IBBY Slovenia. 

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Jordi Sierra i Fabra’s writing career has spanned almost fifty years. Born in Barcelona in 1947, he wrote his first novel while in high school. He attended a technical school at night and worked during the day for a construction company until his early 20s when he began working as a music writer and radio programme producer. He worked for music magazines and in 1972 published his first book on the history of pop music. In 1981, he won the Gran Angular Young Peoples Literature Prize for El cazador (The hunter) and again in 1983, for … en un lugar llamado Tierra (… in a place called Earth) and in 1991 for El ultimo set (The last set). An extremely prolific writer, he has written over 400 works and sold over 12 million books and is the eighth most widely read author in Spanish schools. He has won over 30 literary prizes as well as multiple mentions on honour lists in Spain and abroad, including the IBBY Honour List and the White Ravens selection. His best-known works include: Aydin (1994), Kafka y la muñeca viajera (Kafka and the travelling doll, 2006) and Las palabras heridas (Wounded words, 2017). His work Historia de un Segundo (History of a second) won the Barco de Vapor prize and was included in the 2012 IBBY Honour List. In 2004, he created the Fundación Jordi Sierra i Fabra in Barcelona and the Fundación Taller de Letras Jordi Sierra i Fabra in Medellin, Colombia to help young writers, which won the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award in 2010.  He has been nominated three times for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, in 2006, 2012 and 2020. 

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Annika Thor is currently one of the most successful authors of books for children and young adults in Sweden. She was born in 1950 and grew up in Gothenburg and has worked as a librarian and an arts director, as well as a freelance writer in film, media and children’s culture. Her first book for young adults, En ö i havet (An island in the sea), published in 1996, was about two Jewish refugee sisters who come from Vienna to live on an island in the Gothenburg archipelago in the 1940s. It met with great critical acclaim and was nominated for the prestigious Augustpriset and won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 1999. En ö i havet was followed by three more titles and the series has been widely appreciated by both critics and readers alike in many countries. She returns again to the time before and during World War II in her novel Om inte nu så när (If not now, when, 2011). She won the Augustpriset in 1997 for her book Sanning eller konsekvens (Truth or dare). Her first picture book Flickan från långt borta (The girl from far away, 2014) with illustrations by Maria Jönsson, is a book about different kinds of loneliness. In all, she has published more than twenty books for children of all ages, books that often portray people in dire situations, with psychological and existential conflicts, struggling to find a place in society. Her most recent book is a retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey for children from the perspective of Odysseus’ son (Odysseys Pojke, Odysseus’ boy, 2020). Annika Thor was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2020.

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Franz Hohler is a born storyteller, whether songs, poems, stories, novels, plays, presented to both children and adults as books, readings, cabaret programmes or on radio and television. Born 1943 in Biel, he began studies in German and Romance languages at the University of Zurich in 1963. However, he left university to create a cabaret act that successfully toured Switzerland, Germany and Austria. His first children’s book, Tschipo (1978), is now a classic and his picture books have been illustrated by some of the best-known illustrators in the German-speaking world, including Rotraut Susanne Berner, Wenn ich mir etwas wünschen könnte, (If I had a wish, 2000) and Kathrin Schärer, Es war einmal ein Igel (Once there was a hedgehog, 2011). His distinctive narrative style is fantastic realism: the stories typically begin with a real-life situation to which he adds a varied range of peculiar and surreal elements. His work has been described as playful, enigmatic, poetic, humorous, humane and radical. His collection of short stories, Das grosse Buch (The big book, 2009) are fairy tales that are not set in a castle, but in a supermarket and in other everyday places. Franz Hohler has received numerous awards, including the Oldenburger Kinder und Jugendbuchpreis for Tschipo in 1978. Tschipo und die Pinguine (Tschipo and the penguin, 1985) was selected for the 1988 IBBY Honour List. In 1994, he received the Schweizerischer Jugendbuchpreis for Der Riese und die Erdbeerkonfitüre (The giant and the strawberry jam, 1993) and in 2013 he won the Solothurner Literaturpreis for his complete works. He was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2016, 2018 and 2020. Tschipo has been included in the list of books highlighted by the Andersen Jury as an outstanding work.   

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Behiç Ak is a well-known cartoonist, playwright and author of children’s books. Born in Samsun on the Black Sea, he studied architecture at Istanbul Yıldız University and İstanbul Technical University. He began drawing the daily comic strip, Kim Kime Dum Duma! (Everybody for himself!), for the well-known newspaper Cumhuriyet in 1982. His comic books have been published in Turkey and Germany and his comic strips have been exhibited in several cities throughout Turkey, as well as in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. He has written and illustrated 38 children’s books, including children’s novels, such as Yaşasın Ç Harfi Kardeşliği (Hurray for the brotherhood of Ç! 2013) and Postayla Gelen Deniz Kabuğu (The seashell that came by post, 2014), as well as illustrated story books for early readers, such as Güneşi Bile Tamir Eden Adam (The man who even repaired the sun, 2007) and Galata'nın Tembel Martısı (Galata’s lazy seagull, 2011) from the Gülümseten Öyküler (Cheerful Stories) series. He uses humour to examine even the most serious social issues in his stories and his illustrations are as powerful and colourful as his words. He has also produced plays, the best known is Fay Hatti (Fault Line), and documentaries. He has been an ardent supporter of the history and architecture of Istanbul and has brought this activism to young readers. 

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Halyna Malyk is a writer, translator, editor, and public figure. She was born 1951 in Berdiansk and graduated from the Philology Department of the Uzhhorod State University. Her works for children and young adults range from fairy tales to realistic anti-utopias, but in all her works she attempts to address real-world issues, including the specific Ukrainian post-Chernobyl syndrome with its ecological, social, psychological, and spiritual consequences. Her writing style expresses a wide range: compassion and irony, regret, indignation and anger, disgust and admiration. Her works appear in many types of publications: novelty books, pop-up books, books with open endings, comics, audio, art books and interactive e-books. She has also written plays and translates from Russian, Bulgarian, Slovak and Hungarian. Her first work for children, the fairy tales Nezvychaini pryhody Ali (Alia`s unusual adventures) was published in 1988 and received the Oleksandr Kopylenko Prize. In 2003, she was awarded the Lesya Ukrainka Prize, for Zlochyntsi z Paralelnoho Svitu (Criminals from the parallel world). Her most recent work, the picture book, Piratskyi Marschrut (Pirate Route, 2019) was included in the 2020 White Ravens catalogue. She is actively involved in various aspects of children’s literature including book fairs and as jury member for book prizes. In addition, she is the founder of new Ukrainian comics for children Fantasy for the Youngest and Social Fantasy.  

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Marcus Sedgwick is an author whose imagination ranges from the deep past to a dystopian present in books for young adults and to humour in mystery adventures for younger readers. Born in 1968 in Kent, books have always featured in his life: he has worked as a bookseller and with a publishing company and has been Author-in-Residence at Bath Spa University and has taught on the Arvon Creative Writing Courses. He is self-taught and his dystopian novel, Floodland, was published and won the Branford Boase Award for best debut novel in 2001. He continued to explore dark themes with My Sword Hand is Singing, which won the Booktrust Teenage Prize in 2007 and then Revolver (2009) that was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and cited as a Printz Honor Book when it appeared in the USA in 2011. Revolver was also selected for the 2012 IBBY Honour List. In 2014, he was awarded the Printz Award for Midwinter Blood, a novel in which the themes are explored through interlocking narratives that cross time. This experimental approach reappears in The Ghosts of Heaven – his second Printz Honor in 2016 – where his fascination with mathematics is embedded in the storytelling. He has also written several graphic novels. notably Dark Satanic Mills (2013) and The Voyages in the Underworld of Orpheus Black (2019) in collaboration with his brother Julian Sedgwick, which was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He continues to write about contemporary issues including blindness in She is Not Invisible (2013), migration in Saint Death (2016) and most recently, climate change in Snowflake, AZ (2019).

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Linda Sue Park has written for children of all ages, from picture books to novels, poetry to anthologies, fantasy series to historical stories based on her Korean heritage. Born in Urbana, Illinois and growing up near Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s, she had little experience of other Korean Americans or Korean culture. She went on to earn three literature degrees, at Stanford University, Trinity College Dublin and the University of London and she worked as a copywriter and taught English as a second language. While living in London she started to write stories for her children about their Korean heritage. Her first book, Seesaw Girl, a historical novel about an aristocratic girl growing up in 17th-century Korea, was published in 1999. Her most acclaimed title A Single Shard won the Newberry Medal in 2002, as well as many other awards, features a young orphan boy in 12^th century Korea who becomes the apprentice to an acerbic master potter. Her titles include the 15th-century The Kite Fighters (2000), the 19th-century The Firekeeper’s Son (2004), the 20th-century Japanese occupation in When My Name Was Keoko (2002). She has written about young Korean American heroes in Archer’s Quest (2006) and Project Mulberry (2005), but also the experience of other cultures as in A Long Walk to Water (2010) set in Sudan. Her latest, and most personal novel, Prairie Lotus (2020) was written as “an attempt at a painful reconciliation” between her childhood love for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series and her adult knowledge of racism. Linda Sue Park has been involved in several organisations to promote diversity in children’s literature, including We Need Diverse Book, a literary non-profit organisation, and KiBooka (Kids’ Books by Korean Americans).

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