Nominees announced for 2016 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award

Next year 215 candidates from 59 countries will be in the running for the world’s largest children’s literature award, jury chair Boel Westin announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair today.

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) recognizes creators of literature in a broad sense. Nominees include authors, illustrators, storytellers, and persons and organisations who work to promote literacy. Jury chair Westin said:

“We are deeply impressed by the work of the nominating bodies in proposing qualified candidates for ALMA. I hope the nominee list will be an active reference for literacy promoters and educators around the world as they seek out the most outstanding contemporary literature for children and young adults.”

A total of 111 nominating bodies worldwide proposed candidates for the 2016 award. Many chose to re-nominate previous candidates, but this year’s list also includes 42 new names. New nominating countries for this year are China, Nicaragua, Palestine, Austria, and the United Arab Emirates. The complete list of nominees is online at www.alma.se.

“The jury now has the hard but very pleasant and rewarding job of finding one or more laureates for 2016. We have meetings once a month and between meetings we read piles of books and documents.”

The laureate or laureates of the 2016 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award will be announced in Stockholm and Bologna immediately following the jury’s final meeting on April 5 of next year.

The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) is the world’s largest award for children’s and young adult literature. The award, which amounts to SEK 5 million, is given annually to a single laureate or to several. Authors, illustrators, oral storytellers and reading promoters are eligible. The award is designed to promote interest in children’s and young adult literature. The UN convention of rights of the child is the foundation of our work. An expert jury selects the laureate(s) from candidates nominated by institutions and organisations all over the world. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was founded by the Swedish government in 2002 and is administrated by the Swedish Arts Council.

Nominations for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2016 to be revealed on October 15

The list of nominated candidates for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2016 will be presented at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The program is a co-operation with the Frankfurt Book Fair and begins at 4.00 pm with a presentation of this year’s laureate, the South African promoting reading organisation PRAESA, Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa. After the presentation the nomination list will be available on the award website.

A list of the nominating bodies for 2016 is published on http://www.alma.se/en.

For questions and interviews in Frankfurt with Jury Chairman Boel Westin and PRAESA representative Carole Bloch please contact Communications Officer Helene Andersson.

Video from the program in Frankfurt

 

Nominated Candidates for 2015 to be revealed on October 9th

Photo: Stefan Tell

On 9 October, the nominees for the 2015 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) are presented at the international Frankfurt Book Fair. The list of candidates is presented by Boel Westin, Chairman of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award jury.

The program begins at 4:00 pm with the following participants: Silke Weitendorf, Publishing Director at Oetinger Verlag, Jury Chairman Boel Westin, ALMA Director Helen Sigeland and moderator Felicitas von Lowenberg, culture journalist at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Program

4:00 pm         Welcome by Gabi Rauch-Kneer, Vice President of the Frankfurt Book Fair

4:05 pm         The Work and World of Barbro Lindgren

4:30 pm         The 2014 Announcement and Beyond

4:40 pm         Presentation of the nominated candidates for 2015

5:00 pm         Reception

Venue: Frankfurt Book Fair, Children‘s Book Centre, 3.0 K 137

The list of the nominated candidates will be published on www.alma.se/en after the end of the program.

Photo: Stefan Tell

Ein Entlein in Frankfurt

Ein Entlein kann so nützlich sein (the German edition of Tener un patito…) is nominated for Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (the German Children’s Literature Award) in the category for picturebooks. Since they are our neighbours at the Frankfurt Book Fair, it’s impossible not to notice Isol’s books if passing by our corner of the fair. The winners are announced later today.

During ALMA’s programme at the fair yesterday, not only the candidates for the 2014 award were presented. A presentation of Isol’s work was made, and Larry Lempert and Helen Sigeland also talked about the working year of ALMA. Moderator for the whole thing was actress Anna Thalbach.

Larry Lempert comments the release of candidates for 2014

Release of list of Nominated Candidates for 2014 on October 10

Photo: Frankfurt Book Fair (2012)

The list of nominated candidates for the 2014 Award will be announced on October 10. Jury Chairman Larry Lempert presents the list at the international Book Fair in Frankfurt. The program begins at 4:00 pm with a welcome speech by Gabi Rauch-Kneer, Vice President of the Frankfurt Book Fair. Then the works of this year’s laureate Isol is presented. ALMA Director Helen Sigeland will talk about the upcoming events of ALMA Before Larry Lempert makes the announcement at 4:40.A digital list in alphabetical order and interview with Larry Lempert will be available on our web after the announcement!

Frankfurt report

Lisa Lundgren from the ALMA award office was asked to write a few lines from Frankfurt Book Fair for World Literature Today, here’s the link to her blog post.

Nominees and cake in Frankfurt

ALMA, together with the Frankfurt Book Fair, was the host on Thursday of a programme where the list of nominated candidates for the 2013 award was made public. The programme started at 4 pm with a welcome address by Gabi Rauch-Kneer, Vice President of the Frankfurt Book Fair, followed by a discussion of the nomination process and of the work of 2012 recipient Guus Kuijer. Moderator Felicitas von Lovenberg, of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, led a discussion between Larry Lempert, Chairman of the jury, and ALMA Director Helen Sigeland. The conversation focused on what criteria makes a candidate stand out and how the jury comes to a decision about which candidate or candidates should receive the award each year.

Helen Sigeland talking about the exhibition in Bologna marking the 10 year anniversary of ALMA.

Helen Sigeland talked of ALMA celebrating its 10 year anniversary, and the announcement of Guus Kuijer as the 2012 award recipient in March of this year. She also showed a slide of Guus Kuijer visiting Sweden at the end of May to participate in the award week. Larry Lempert then announced that there are 207 candidates from 67 countries nominated for the 2013 award, which is more than ever before. The number of nominating bodies participating in the nomination process has also increased since last year.

The programme concluded with Karin Nyman, daughter of Astrid Lindgren, being invited to the stage to participate in a conversation with Larry Lempert on the democratic values of Astrid Lindgren, focusing on the newly published Never violence! (Salikon), Astrid Lindgren’s speech when receiving the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels in 1978.

Helen Sigeland, Larry Lempert, Karin Nyman and Felicitas von Lovenberg in conversation.

After the programme a reception followed  celebrating the 10 year anniversary of ALMA, the 10 year anniversary of the Illustratoren Organisation (IO) and the 30 anniversary of Eselsohr.  Marking this event each organisation was presented with a beautiful birthday cake, picture of the ALMA cake below.

(… and if anyone´s wondering – yes, the cake tasted quite good, there were lots and lots of berries inside.)

There simply must be a cake if you´re celebrating a 10 year anniversary. Photo: Lisa Lundgren.

207 candidates from 67 countries

Today Larry Lempert, chairman of the jury for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), announced that 207 candidates from 67 countries have been nominated for the 2013 award, including 61 first-time nominees. The announcement was made at the international Frankfurt Book Fair.

This figure is notably higher than last year’s total of nominees. The number of nominating bodies has also increased. The nominating bodies comprise organisations and research institutions at international, national and regional level working in the fields of children’s and young adult literature and reading promotion.

– The increase in the number of nominees and nominating bodies is evidence of a growing desire to highlight examples of top-quality writing and reading promotion work on the international stage, says Larry Lempert.

Living writers, illustrators, oral storytellers and active reading promoting organisations are eligible for the award. Of the nominees for 2013, 37% are writers, 25% illustrators, 14% reading promotion groups, 13% both writers and illustrators, 5% individual reading promoters and 1% oral storytellers. Among the 207 candidates, 5% have been nominated in multiple categories. The 177 nominated individuals comprise 93 men and 84 women.

The recipient or recipients of the 2013 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award will be announced on 26 March 2013 at 1 pm.

Link to list of all candidates here.