HCA 2014 Jury

After training as a teacher and editor, María Jesús worked at Ediciones SM for twenty years, starting as Foreign Rights Manager, and then as the Editorial Manager of the Department of Children and Young Adults for fifteen years. She also worked as the Editorial Manager of Alfaguara Infantil y Juvenil and Altea (Santillana).  After a time as a professional consultant for publishing firms, she joined the Foundation SM and is currently the coordinator of its Reading Programmes for Spain and Latin America. 

María Jesús was an elected member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 1996 until 2000.  Between 2009 and 2011 she served as President of the Spanish Section of IBBY and was the Chair of the 32^nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela in 2010.  She was a member of the Jury for the Hans Christian Andersen Award for the 2008 and 2010 awards. María Jesús was elected President of the 2012 and 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Anastasia graduated from Moscow State Academy of Fine Arts named after Surikov and began working as illustrator while still a student. Since then she has illustrated many books for children by the Brothers Grimm, HC Andersen, Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, among others.  Her books have been published in many countries in Europe, Asia and the USA, as well as in Russia.  In 2003 she won the 1^st Prize in All Russia contest  “Book of the Year” as “Best Illustrator”.  She has exhibited her work in many countries, and also organizes exhibitions for Russian illustrators.

Anastasia is a member the Russian Academy of Art and has the title of an Honoured Artist of Russia and is head of the Moscow Association of Illustrators and Book Designers.  In 2013 she received a Silver Medal from the Russian Academy of Art.

In 2008 she initiated a new annual contest for book illustrators and designers Obraz Knigi and is currently the president of the jury.  She has been a member of the BIB jury twice and member of the jury of the first international Nami Concours in 2013.  In 2006 she was elected to the IBBY Executive Committee and served for two terms until 2010. In 2011 she was selected to serve on the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

Fanuel graduated in Literature at the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Caracas, and gained a Magister Scientiarum in Science and Applied Arts and an honorific mention in Television, from the Universidad José María Vargas. He coordinated the Department of Selection of Books for Children and Young People of Banco del Libro and directed the literature magazine Parapara. He has been member of the jury in several national and international children’s literature contests, including the BIB. As a theorist and researcher of Children’s Literature, he has given lectures and workshops in several Latin American and European countries.

He has been honoured with many awards for his work and has written several non-fiction books for children, which have been included in the SEP (Ministry of Education) programme in Mexico.  His book, with co-author Mónica Bergna, Cartas a Leandro, was included in the 2008 IBBY Honour List.  Fanuel is also Editor of the Latin American children’s literature magazine Barataria and he currently holds the position of Production Director at Larense Publishing House, while developing research proposals as an independent scholar.

Sabine studied German Philology and Catholic Theology and in Berlin/German Media Science at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz. For seven years she was part of the research work about Austrian Literature in National Socialism at the Institute of German Philology in the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz. After several years in cultural administration she became a secondary-school teacher. Currently she is professor at the University of Teacher Education Styria in Graz. Her main interest is in Children’s Literature, media and literacy.

With others she founded the Austrian Research Society for Children’s and Youth Literature (ÖGfKJLF), is in the board of the Austrian Literacy Association (ALA) and Liaison Officer for IBBY Austria. Sabine has also worked as an editor and is asked to speak on children’s literature, media and education.  She served on the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Jury. 

Sangwook studied Literature Education at Seoul National University and in 1995 gained his Ed.D. Since 1997 he has worked as a professor at the Chuncheon National University of Education, where he teaches courses on children’s literature, picture books and the history of Korean children’s literature. In 2002/3 he was a visiting scholar at the Teachers’ College of Colombia University, NY.

His publications have included many books about children’s literature, theory and the practice of teaching, and in particular about picture books.  He has also published monographs for various journals.  Between 2004 and 2011 Sangwook was a representative for the group Citizen Acts for the Genuine Reading Culture.  From 2007 until 2012 he was the president of the Korean Association of Literature form Children and Young Adults and is currently the chairman of the coordination committee for the monthly magazine Eolini-wa-Munhak (Children and Literature).

Enrique holds a Licentiate in Journalism (1982) and is currently the Director of Gente Nueva Publishing House in Havana.  He is also the Director of the theoretical magazine En julio como en enero, working with the IBBY Cuban Committee, since 2007.  He is a writer, critic, editor and children’s literature researcher, as well as President of the Children’s Literature Section of the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC) and he was a member of the IBBY Cuban Committee (1993-2008).  He was the founder of the first Cuban bookshop for children: El Cochero Azul, with a sociocultural approach to community works with children and teenagers.

His books are known in in many countries including Japan, Switzerland, the USA, and most of Latin America and are included in primary school programmes in many countries.  He has published many academic works and is also the author of some twenty anthologies in Cuba and other countries, including an Anthology of the Andersen Award Winners. 

He has received many awards and served on juries in Cuba and internationally.  He has spoken at many conferences and was co-organizer of the biennial Cuban IBBY conferences held in Havana.

After studying children’s book illustration, literature for children and history of illustration at the European Institute of Design in Rome, Deborah earned a diploma Bookstore Management and from 1999 worked at a mega bookshop for children in Rome. In 2006 she set up her own bookstore Ottimomassmio, which is a traveling bookshop that takes books to children in remote areas where they have no access to books.

She has been a member of IBBY Italia since the section re-joined IBBY in 2003, and then joined the board of 2010 and has served as the Vice President from 2012.  In 2012 she initiated an IBBY project called Silent Books: Final Destination Lampedusa, which promotes books for young people as a tool for integration. The project has collected the best books without words with the help of the IBBY members – Silent Books – and donated them to Lampedusa in the Mediterranean, which is the first port of call for those arriving from across the sea on their way to starting a new life.

Deborah is bilingual – Italian/English – and this is her first term on the Hans Christian Andersen Jury.

Susan a professor of English at Central Michigan University, where among the courses she teaches are those in international and multicultural literature for children and young adults. Her experience in the field of children’s books includes a decade working for the Lerner Publishing Group in both the marketing and editorial departments and eleven years as editor of The Five Owls, a now-defunct journal about children’s books. Susan’s interest in international children’s literature began with trips to the Frankfurt and Bologna Book Fairs while she was at Lerner and led her to write a dissertation on international picture books.

Since 1986, when she attended her first IBBY World Congress in Japan, Susan has been an active member the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY). She has served as USBBY’s president and is the author of The World through Children’s Books (Scarecrow, 2002), one of the books in the Bridges to Understanding series sponsored by USBBY. A longtime member of the American Library Association, Susan has served on several committees, including selection committees for the Caldecott and Batchelder awards.

Sahar earned her B.A. in Visual Communication and Graphic Design from the Azad University in Tehran. She joined the Children’s Book Council of Iran (CBC - National section of IBBY) in 1997, and since then has worked and undertaken research the field of children’s literature.  In 2000 she began working as a graphic designer and research assistant at the Institute for Research on the History of Children’s Literature in Iran and worked on the project Pictures in Children’s Books until 2003.

From 2003 until 2007 she worked as an art and crafts tutor in the Education Department and Family Learning of the Durham County Council in the UK. In 2007 she graduated from the University of Sunderland with an MA degree in Design: Multimedia and Graphics. Since her return to Iran she has been working as an independent researcher, a freelance graphic designer and a critic of children’s book literature and illustration. She has written and translated several reviews and essays both in national and international journals. She was selected for the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury in 2012. Sahar is currently a member of the CBC’s executive committee and acts as the international liaison with IBBY.

In June 2011 Erik founded Lilla Piratförlaget as an independent publisher of children's and young adult literature in Stockholm.  He is the CEO and publishing director and is dedicated to publishing high quality literature, both original and in translation.  He studied International Business and Literature at the University of Gothenburg, as well as at the Gothenburg School of Economics.  From 2001 he worked for Swedish publishing houses before taking up the position of the Director of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) in 2008, an award founded by the Swedish government to promote children's literature in the world. 

All through his life, Erik has worked with storytelling for children and young adults using different media and approaches.  Working with ALMA also meant cooperating with IBBY on several levels, both with individual national sections and with IBBY International. He strongly believes in the aims of IBBY and upon leaving ALMA, he joined the board of Swedish IBBY.  Having lived, studied and worked in several different countries and later travelled extensively, his view of literature as a means for greater understanding between cultures and people has been reinforced.

After graduating from Üsküdar American Academy for Girls and the Business Administration Faculty of Istanbul University (1971), Ayfer worked in corporate management for 20 years. She went back to university a second time and received her Masters degree in Turkish Language and Literature from Bogaziçi University with her thesis The Representation of the Disabled in Turkish Children's Literature in 2010.  Since 2011 she has been teaching Contemporary Children's Literature classes at the Bogaziçi University.

Her first book, Dogum Gününde Gelen Agaç (The tree that arrived on the birthday), was published in 1996 and was followed by 9 other picture books, 2 novels for middle grade readers and three translations for adults.  Since 2006, Ayfer writes a monthly column called The Eye of the Child in the Dünya newspaper where she endorses the importance of children’s books within the family.

She is currently a member of IBBY Turkey, SCWIB, Turkish Pen Association and the US Children’s Literature Association.  In 2011 she was selected to serve on the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury, this is her second term on the Jury.

Elda holds a BA degree from the Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro with her Major in Portuguese and English Languages and Literatures – 1975. She later specialized in English as a Foreign Language at the University of Rochester, USA, as well as in translation and interpretation.  She worked as high school teacher in Rio de Janeiro and after moving to Marseilles she has taught Portuguese as a Foreign Language as well as working as a translator and interpreter from 2004 to 2013.

She collaborated with Fundação Nacional do Livro Infantil e Juvenil, the Brazilian section of IBBY, from 1987 to 2010 promoting reading and children's literature in Brazil and also served on juries for reading promotion projects in Brazil. In 2010 Elda was a member of the Reading Committee for titles in Portuguese for the catalogue Lireen V.O. (Reading in original language) from the Centre national de littérature jeunesse de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France – IBBY France.

Elda served as a member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 2004-2008, acting as Vice President from 2006 to 2008.  She has represented the IBBY President on the IBBYHans Christian Andersen Jury since 2008 as an ex-officio member.