The 33rd IBBY International Congress starts tomorrow, August 23rd and runs until August 26th at Imperial College, London. The theme of the 2012 congress is Crossing Boundaries: Translations and Migrations and will focus on how books and stories for children and young people can cross boundaries and migrate across different countries and cultures. The Congress will look at issues such globalisation, dual-language texts, cultural exchange and the art of translation and will explore how literature for children migrates and translates in all its forms. PaperTigers Editor Marjorie Coughlan will be presenting a paper entitled Escaping Conflict, Seeking Peace: picture books that relate refugee stories, and their importance.
During the Congress a dedicated team of bloggers will be providing a constant stream of news and reports from the sessions, events and social occasions. The main posts will be displayed on the font page of the IBBY Congress 2012 website. To view the whole blog, just choose BLOG from the HOME menu or visit http://www.ibbycongress2012.org/blog. You can subscribe to the blog by pointing your RSS feed reader (e.g. Google Reader) at the address http://www.ibbycongress2012.org/blog/?feed=rss2. The twitter hashtag for the Congress is #IBBY2012.
Why would the majorities want to change a society in which they are perfectly comfortable and privileged? It may seem at a first glance that the majority is the dominant force in every society, but those who dramatically change their world, now and throughout history, always belong to the minority. Minorities –social, ethnic, linguistic, gender, religious- possess a force and an internal dynamism that this Congress will address by critically evaluating and highlighting today’s situation for all minorities. We hope that the Congress will encourage equity that will lead to empowerment of minorities throughout the world.