It was a real thrill for me to meet not only Dashdondog Jamba at the IBBY Congress last month, having interviewed him last year, but also Anne Pellowski, who worked with him on the Libraries Unlimited edition of Mongolian Folktales. Here’s a photo of us all:
Dashdondog was a member of a superb storytellers’ panel with Michael Harvey telling a tall tale in a mixture of Welsh and English and Sonia Nimr recounting hers first in English then in Arabic. It was fascinating in both cases how much audience participation was possible, regardless of the language they were speaking, simply (and of course, not simple at all really) becasue they were such fine storytellers.
Dashdondog’s story-telling in Mongolian was accompanied by a slideshow that provided the necessary context and I loved his verse rendition of the work of the Mongolian Mobile Library that he founded in 1990 – the onomatopeia could be universally understood. You can watch part of it here. As well as his gift for storytelling, this part of Dashdondog’s presentation provided an indication of how committed the Mobile Children’s Library is in ensuring library books reach as many children as possible, regardless of the challenges of terrain, distance and weather conditions they encounter.
Do read Dashdondog’s article about the library here – and you can read some of his vibrant poems translated into English on his blog.
We are delighted to welcome author Dashdondog Jamba to PaperTigers. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about the amazing Mobile Library he founded in Mongolia some twenty years ago and we also featured a reprint of an article he wrote for IBBY’s journal Bookbird. Dashdondog has published more than seventy books, some of which can be read in English on the ICDL; he also has a blog, which includes translations of some of his poems, as featured in a recent Poetry Friday post. I’m grateful to Ramendra Kumar for putting me in contact with Dashdondog initially, and to Dashdondog himself for taking my inability to communicate in Mongolian in his stride – as well as for sending some great photos.
You have devoted your life to making it possible for children to have access to books. Can you give us some background to what Mongolia was like when you started out as a writer in the 1960s?
In 1958 the agricultural collectivization policy, which entailed handing livestock over to cooperatives, was almost completed in Mongolia. And even though my family didn’t like it, we delivered our livestock to the agricultural cooperative. It was a difficult time for rural herders to part from their beloved livestock. I clearly remember the moment when my grandma was crying about the “pitiable livestock”, and breeding lambs and kids were bleating and trying to run back to their shelters. Yet writers had written that herders had given their livestock to the agricultural cooperatives voluntarily. At that time my first book was published by the State Publishing House. I was 17 years old and in secondary school. From my first book you can only feel the heart of a boy who loves his lambs and calves. So I am always glad that I chose children’s literature as a career far from politics.
What changes have you witnessed, and indeed been instrumental in over the years?
For me who has been witness of two different societies there is opportunity to compare their weaknesses and advantages. I thankfully welcomed democracy, which brought us the freedom to think and have our own opinions. The freedom declared by socialism was limited, like wearing tight clothes. I can bear witness to it because I was considered as anti-communist and punished by losing the right to publish books.
What prompted you to start your now famous travelling library?
In 1990 Mongolia renounced communism and chose democracy with a free-market economy. During the privatization of property former children’s organizations were not taken over by anybody because they were considered as profitless and uneconomic. The formerly state-run children’s book publishing house became a private school, the children’s library became a private bank and the children’s cinema became the stock exchange.
Even though I had fought against it, my efforts didn’t work. Then I asked myself what we should be writing for children in this new society to read. It was unthinkable to present them with books w
Our current focus on Mongolia would be incomplete without a full mention of poet, writer and librarian extraordinaire, Dashdondog Jamba, who set up Mongolia’s Mobile Children’s Library more than twenty years ago in order to bring books to children even in the remotest parts of the country. We are delighted to be able to bring you a reprint of an article from IBBY’s Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature written by Dashdondog, “With the Mobile Library Through the Seasons“. Do head over to the main PaperTigers website and read it for some fascinating insight into the Mobile Library service, through this detailed description of one of its journeys. Originally the library was transported by oxcart or camel; now there is a van which clocks up thousands of kilometers every year. The library won the 2006 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award and features in Margriet Ruurs‘ book My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World.
As well as ensuring that Mongolian children have access to books from all over the world, Dashdondog Jamba (sometimes also written as Jambyn) is himself the author of more than seventy children’s books. Not many are available in English but you can get a tantalising glimpse of some of them here, at the ICDL. A collection of his retellings of Mongolian Folktales was published recently and is currently our Book of the Month. Dashdondog was instrumental in setting up the Mongolian sections of both SCBWI and IBBY.
You can read an article by Dashdondog, “Children’s Literature in Mongolia Needs Renovation” written for ACCU in 2001, and his speech to IBBY’s 30th Congress in Macau in 2006. Indian author Ramendra Kumar recounts his meeting with Dashdondog here, including an unexpected prelude – and some great photos.
Retold by Dashdondog Jamba and Borolzoi Dashdondog, edited by Anne Pellowski,
Mongolian Folktales
World Folklore Series, Libraries Unlimited, 2009.
Ages 8+
Part of Libraries Unlimited’s World Folklore Series, Mongolian Folktales is an anthology of more than sixty myths and stories which form part of the oral culture still very much treasured and handed on in Mongolia today. The book also provides a concise wealth of detail about Mongolian culture, including such areas as a brief historical outline of Mongolia, holidays and festivals, sports, food (including recipes) and folk art. There are also selections of riddles, proverbs and triads, all of whose prominent roles in Mongolian oral culture are explained under “Other Folklore”.
The stories themselves are arranged by type (Animal, Humorous, Magical etc.). Some, such as “The origin of the Mongols” or “A Fiery Red Khan”, proclaim their Mongolian origins; others, like “A Tale of Friendship” or “The Foolish Man”, remind readers of the interconnectedness of folktales. Some stories are cited as originating from Chinggis Khan: for example, “The Snake with One Head and a Thousand Tales”, which serves as a warning to his children and grandchildren about the dangers of infighting. Readers or listeners (for following in the oral tradition of the original stories, the fine translations here beg to be read aloud) will be able to interweave these tales into the fabric of stories from their own culture, finding contrasts and similarities. Most of them are very short, making them ideal for dipping into; but some, like “Dreaming Boy” about a boy whose dreams get him into trouble but whose integrity wins through, have the satisfying depth of a fairy tale.
Photographs give the stories a contemporary context – as well as a glimpse at the famous Mongolian Mobile Children’s Library, winner of the IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award in 2006 and founded by Dashdondog Jamba, one of the book’s authors. One particular photograph shows children playing “Wolf and Marmot”, a fun-sounding group game outlined in the “Games” section. Other drawings include maps and a fascinating diagram of the layout of a ger, the “round home of at least half of the Mongolian people.”
Many stories are robust in their retellings, reminding us that folklore is not just for children. Mongolian Folktales is a superbly collated book and one that no one young or old will ever grow out of.
Marjorie Coughlan
March 2011
