Croatian author up for prestigious children’s literature award.
After Ivan Kušan, Luka Paljetak, Zvonimir Balog, Sunčana Škrinjarić, Višnja Stahuljak and Joža Horvat, versatile Croatian author Miro Gavran has been nominated for the most prestigious award for children’s literature in the world which is named after Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. Gavran’s nomination has passed a rigorous selection process by IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People. This year, the IBBY has accepted nominations for 28 writers and 29 illustrators from around the world. The names of winners will traditionally be announced during the children’s book fair in Bologna. The awards will be decided by a jury comprised of thirteen members (including Andrei Ilc from Slovenia), reports Vecernji List on January 11, 2016.
The Hans Christian Andersen Award has been presented to authors every two years since 1956, while the award for illustrators was established ten years later. Among the first winners of the Andersen Awards were famous writers such as Astrid Lindgren and Erich Kastner.
So far, no Croatian author has ever won the Anderson Award. The most successful nominee was an internationally acclaimed Croatian illustrator Svjetlan Junaković who has been shortlisted for the award twice, in 2008 and 2010. Other Croatian illustrators who were nominated for the award are Ivica Antolčić, Ivan Vitez, Cvijeta Job and Vjekoslav Vojo Radoičić.
Works of the prolific author and the most performed Croatian playwright Miro Gavran have so far been translated into as many as thirty-eight languages. His books have been published at home and abroad in more than two hundred editions, and he has had over three hundred premieres at Croatian and international theatres. Some of his plays have been successfully adapted into films.
Gavran’s most famous book for younger readers is novel Forgotten Son, which has been translated into English, German and Spanish, and in 2002 was included in the IBBY honour list. The novel about a boy called Mislav who after sixteen years of living in an institution for children with special needs returns to his family was first published in 1989.
At the end of last year, Gavran’s Croatian publisher Mozaik Knjiga published his new novel for young readers, A Summer to Remember. Miro Gavran is one of the authors whose titles are among the most often requested books in Croatian libraries.
