The 32nd International IBBY Congress was held in Santiago de Compostela, Spain this past September with the theme The Strength of Minorities:
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.
You can now read the detailed program and speeches from the Congress on-line by clicking here. Photos from the event can be seen here.
Planning for the 33rd International IBBY Congress in London is already underway. The dates are set for August 23 – 26, 2012 and the theme of the Congress is Crossing Boundaries: Translations and Migrations. Participants will explore 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 as globalization, dual-language texts, cultural exchange and the art of translation. For more information, check out the IBBY 2012 Congress website.
Gita Wolf, publisher and director at Tara Books, has posted a wonderful entry on the Tara Books Blog entitled The Politics of Voice: Folk and Tribal Art in Children’s Literature in which she talks about her presentation at the recent IBBY Congress:
“It may seem, at 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.” With this motto, the International Board on Books for Young People – IBBY – organized their Congress this year in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The theme was The Strength of Minorities. Given Tara’s work with folk and tribal art communities, I was invited to contribute, to talk about how these ‘outsider’ artists could change the course of children’s literature.
The fundamental question for me had to do with how we can re-imagine children’s literature. What possibilities are there in a publishing world that is increasingly dominated by big business, bestsellers, and a certain sameness in what we think is suitable for children?
When we started publishing in 1995, there were very few picture books for children in India. Ours has been a largely oral tradition, and the notion of children’s literature came from abroad. So Indian children’s books tended to be derivative. To create something that was original, we looked around for Indian illustrators, and what excited us most was the potential we saw in traditional artists.
To read the rest of the article (which contains some lovely illustrations and images!) click here .
Note: The image above is by Gond artist Bhajju Shyam and is from the book The Flight of the Mermaid, text by Gita Wolf and Sirish Rao (Tara Books, 2009). Bhajju is currently featured in our PaperTigers Illustrator Gallery.
