Iranian literary expert elected to jury of Hans Christian Andersen Award 2006

Every other year the International Board of Books for Young People (IBBY) presents the Hans Christian Andersen Award to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important and lasting contribution to children’s literature. The Andersen Awards are the highest international distinction given to an author and an illustrator of children’s books.

At its recent meeting in Bologna, the IBBY Executive Committee elected the international jury for the 2006 awards. The jury comprises ten members nominated by the National Sections of IBBY.

The 2006 awards candidates will be announced in June 2005 and the results will be publicized at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair on March 27, 2006.

The awards will be presented to the winners at the 30th IBBY conference in Beijing, China on September 20, 2006. Jeffrey Garrett (Evanston, Illinois, USA) will guide the process and preside at the jury meeting.

The ten members of the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury 2006 are as follows:

Vasja Cerar, editor of teenage fiction at Mladinska knjiga in Ljubljana, Slovenia; Isabelle Nières-Chevrel, professor of general and comparative literatures at the University of Rennes II, France; Lona Gericke, head of the children’s library at Bellville Public Library, Cape Town, South Africa; Grazia Gotti, co-founder of the Giannino Stoppani cultural cooperative and children’s book shop in Bologna, Italy; Maija Korhonen, head of the children’s department at Kallio Branch Library,  Helsinki, Finland; Angela Lebedeva, senior lecturer in children’s literature at the Sholohov University of Education in Moscow, Russia; Bill Nagelkerke, coordinator of children’s and young adult services at Christchurch City Library, New Zealand; Parnaz Nayeri, children’s literature specialist and translator in Tehran, Iran; Mar?a Cecilia Silva-Diaz of Caracas, Venezuela, currently editor at Ediciones Ekaré in Barcelona; and Junko Yokota, professor of reading, language arts and children’s literature at National-Louis University, Chicago, USA.

Iranians Turan Mirhadi, Soraya Qezel Ayagh, Mansureh Raei, and Zohreh Qaini were jury members in previous years.

RM/HG

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MNA