THE BOLOGNA BOOK FAIR

MK and DZS are quite satisfied with this year’s talks with foreign business partners – For a joint national appearance – The penetration of new media is intensifying. The Bologna Book Fair ended with an intensifying visit in the last two days; Mladinska knjiga and DZS received propaganda materials in English, and there were many business arrangements that, according to both of our participants at the 34th International Book Fair for children, will lead to the printing of our books in several countries.
Moderate optimism prevails, just as the whole fair pulse is festive, as true book lovers gather here. This year, publishers came from the eighty countries and visitors from around sixty-five countries. Every year there are many Slovenian guests in Bologna.On the last day of the fair, we visited our representatives once again (we have already written about how they are divided into three locations) and asked them what the results of this year’s fair were in terms of their publishing program offer.

At Mladinska knjiga, there was a lot of interest among foreigners for a series of six books by Svetlana Makarovič and a collection of Grimm’s fairy tales (The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats, Janko and Metka, Little Red Riding Hood, Bremen Town Musicians, Motovilka and Mizica, bend over) in three versions; as a large picture book, a card with printed letters for the youngest readers and as a coloring book with illustrations by Svjetlan Junakovič from Zagreb. Junakovič is an increasingly penetrating illustrator and was chosen among 98 names for the Fiction exhibition (meaning an elite selection of 1404 authors). Another successful series is Andersen’s fairy tales with illustrations by Marlenka Stupica. Among popular science books for children, they drew attention with a large educational picture book by Sam Kuščer and illustrator Ed Podrek (Living Earth, Energy, Space and Time – the author of this book is Janez Strnad – and now as the Last Water). The whole series has already been bought by the Greeks. They are also interested in it in France, Korea and the USA. The highlight is the multimedia project Wordbuilder – With a game of reading and writing (for children from four to nine years old) by Viljenka Jalovec and with illustrations by Igor Ribič on a CD. This time, they showed the English version, which was of interest to business partners from America, Germany, Italy, Bangladesh, Serbia, Slovakia, France, Hungary, Thailand and Hong Kong. This alone says a lot about where global publishing trends are going and which programs are of increasing interest. A special MK project consists of six more stories for the children by six authors with illustrations by Jelka Reichman in one larger book.

According to the chief editor Andrej Gogala, the DZS also had successful talks. The greatest interest was in some original or translated books or picture books for young people. The Slovenian version of Beowulf was created after the authorized Oxford edition of the abbreviated version, but it is very distinctive in view of the beautiful expressionist illustrations by Irena Majcen. Thus, quite a few foreign partners were interested in the Slovenian version. On the occasion of Kristina Brenkova’s eightieth birthday, they published a collection of short stories Okna in okenca with illustrations by Lucijan Reščič. The third book that attracted international attention is Belin, written by Iva Svetina and illustrated by Metka Krašovec. The Nutcracker written by Marija Lucija Stupica and Hribci by Marjana Manček are also interesting for foreign publishers, as well as Herbs of the Little Witch written by Polona Kovač and illustrated by Ančka Gošnik Godec, which were very interesting for publishers from the Czech Republic and Lithuania. For children growing up, they presented the collection Dober dan, a novel which Boris A. Novak started on (now Breda Rajer is working on it). The Italians bought the rights to print the book of poetry by Josip Osti called the Sarajevo Book of the Dead (for adults). Aksinija Kermauner and Marjan Manček, who is an illustrator, offered a new book for viewing and reading called »How old was I when I was born?«. Gogala emphasizes that the DZS wants to have beautiful books, with original illustrations and with an emphasis on aesthetic value, as there is a lot of kitsch at the fair. The kitsch is mostly among American and English books, but there are the most of them at the fair. The DZS editor emphasizes that it would be easier and cheaper for all Slovenian publishers to perform together as a country under one roof. We have been drawing attention to this for five years, but without success.

The DZS educational publishing house offered some beautiful projects. They said they sent their CD-ROM, called The Historical Timeline to compete for the Bologna new media prize, but were told the contest was meant for works that could influence slightly younger children. The documentation at the award ceremony showed that each category was divided into three age groups: a multimedia program for children from the third to the sixth year, from the sixth to the eleventh, and from the eleventh to the fifteenth year. In our judgment, we would fall into the third group (Perhaps Slovenian children are more mature and smarter than American children and therefore have the right to greater knowledge).

In Bologna, they were the first to offer their multimedia program called Biology, which they are interested in in America. Will the CD-Roms and the internet endanger the book? There has been a lot of discussion about this problem in Bologna, and experts say that reading books will never be endangered, but it will be necessary to properly dose new media into the school curricula (the question is whether the planners of the new Slovenian school curricula think about it or are maybe waiting for children to overtake them with their computer ingenuity).

Multimedia programs are very seductive as they offer amazing possibilities. The question is whether they are useful for everyone. I stopped at a few monitors, for example while learning the guitar with the help of a computer mouse. You know and hear everything, but it’s not a guitar you have to hold in your hands if you want to get a single, tone or chord out of it. It is more interesting to read the score on the screen while listening to, for example, a piano sonata, etc. Otherwise, the computer revolution will show itself in a few years in all its technological and content radicalism. Anyone who is not prepared for it or “ignores” it will be severely disadvantaged in the way they acquire new knowledge and information. Let me just mention a book that particularly appealed to me among all of them: The confession of young people who tried to commit suicide but survived.

AUTHOR: Marjan Zlobec