UAEBBY, IBBY Italy keen on enriching literary and cultural landscape

Through its Guest of Honour, GOH, programme at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival (SCRF) annually, the UAE Board on Books for young people (uaebby) has been furthering its efforts to enrich the local literary and cultural landscape through an international exchange with national sections of the International Board on Books for Young People, IBBY, around the world.

IBBY Italy is under the spotlight at SCRF 2018 and rolled out the irst few activities part of the GOH cultural programme on Wednesday.

The highlight of the day was a discussion titled “The Children’s Book Culture in Italy” featuring Dr Marcella Terrusi, Representative of IBBY Italy, and awardwinning author of the irst international critique on silent books and researcher on “silent” or wordless books and children’s literature; Elena Pasoli, Manager of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair; children’s book expert, Grazia Gotti, and Emirati author and illustrator, Alia Al Shamsi.

Highlighting the importance of illustrations in children’s books, irrespective of the era they were written in, Gotti said, “I would like to mention the Adventures of Pinocchio, which was not a literary novel but just a tale in a children’s magazine. It took Italy time to realise that it was seeing a masterpiece in the making. There was no king or queen, just a wooden doll with a long nose. His iconic illustrations depict the passage of time, technological developments, the transformation of images from black and white to colour, and so on. In essence, what I am saying is, the language of images is as old and culturally important as the written novel itself.”

Shedding light on the role of IBBY Italy in helping Bologna Book Fair become one of the most prominent literary events for children in the western world, Pasoli said, “The Bologna Book Fair was established in 1964. The two organisations, Bologna Book Fair and IBBY Italy are somehow sisters. We have learnt a lot from them; the fact that they were involved with the fair from the very beginning helped us understand the importance of a dialogue between cultures.”

Alia Al Shamsi said she was brought up in a multicultural environment from an early age when her mother of Italian origin gave her a copy of Pinocchio to read in Arabic.