The 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury

The Hans Christian Andersen Award is the highest international distinction given to authors and illustrators of books for young people. Given every other year by IBBY, the Hans Christian Andersen Awards recognize lifelong achievement and are given to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important and lasting contribution to literature for young people.

The following were selected as members of the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury:

• Denis Beznosov (from Moscow, Russia) is the Head of the Cultural Project Department of the Russian State Children’s Library in Moscow. His expertise is in culture and literary studies and literary criticism.

• Yasuko Doi (from Osaka, Japan) is the current Director and Senior Researcher at the International Institute for Children’s Literature in Osaka. For the last twenty years, she has been a part-time lecturer of school librarianship at the Osaka Kyoiku University.

• Reina Duarte (from Barcelona, Spain) is currently the Publishing Director of Edebe Publishing House, which specializes in books for children and young adults. She is also member of the Consultant Committee of the Department of Culture of the Government of Catalonia.

• Andrej Ilc (from Ljubljana, Slovenia) was a children’s book editor, and since 2013, he works as an editor of translated fiction for adults at Mladinska knjiga. Since 1985 he has been writing regularly about music and literature for the leading Slovenian newspapers and magazines.

• Eva Kaliskami (from Athens, Greece) works as a teacher of English for primary private schools and is responsible for the selection of English children’s literature titles. Eva has also worked as a translator of English and American children’s books into Greek.

• Shereen Kreidieh (from Beirut, Lebanon) has been the General Manager for children’s books at Asala Publishing House in Beirut since 1998. She is also is a member of the Lebanese Ministry of Culture committee for reading, where she advises on promotion and development.

• María Beatriz Medina (from Caracas, Venezuela) is currently the Executive Director of Banco del Libro in Caracas.

• Yasmine Motawy (from Cairo, Egypt) is senior instructor at the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo. She is also a free-lance translator from Arabic into English and the reverse.

• Lola Rubio (from Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a Professor of Fine Arts (Painting) from the National School of Fine Arts, Priliduano Pueyrredón (IUNA), as well as a specialist at the children and young adults’ book department of the Fondo de Cultura Económica and the Cultural Centre manager of its bookshop in Buenos Aires.

• Junko Yokota (from Evanston, IL, USA) is Professor Emeritus at the National College of Education, National Louis University, and was the Founding Director of the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books at the University.

Former IBBY Vice President Elda Nogueira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and IBBY Executive Director Liz Page (Basel, Switzerland) are ex officio Jury members. The 2018 Jury was selected by IBBY’s Executive Committee from seventeen nominations made by its national sections. Jury President Patricia Aldana (Toronto, Canada) will lead the Jury to select the winners of the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Awards.