As most of you know, our team is in Bologna almost every year, but we cover the events on local soil every year, even in times of Covid. This time, however, we decided to distance ourselves from what is happening, because a lot has been written and said about the “two” stands of Bulgaria, and especially a lot has been said by people who are not only not here, but have never been. We are somehow accustomed to understanding everything - once it was only about football, medicine and politics, today everyone is a cultural bearer, colossus and arbitrator.
I do not want to comment on the reasons for the two stands at all, because what is happening inside does not concern us, what is important is how it looks from the outside in the eyes of the college and more importantly - to the audience in Bologna.
I will start with the ABK stand, which this year is very bright and welcoming, open to use by all those who are at the fair and have meetings, but do not have a stand (I personally had two meetings with publishers at it) and allows visitors to get acquainted with Bulgarian books. There is a printed catalog (in English) with the displayed editions and this time it is truly a worthy representation of the native book publishers.
My only personal remark is that there is no clear differentiation of the individual publishing houses, i.e. it is not at all clear which publishing house is which, in order to distinguish itself from the others and be able to present itself and its books, and thus attract the attention of potentially interested other publishers for copyright, joint work or communication. In this vein, at the end of the article you will also see several photos of similar solutions from other national corners.
The President of the Bulgarian Book Association, Desislava Alexieva, took part in the multilingual reading of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child – the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history, which was attended by 42 authors, illustrators and publishers from all over the world. In addition, the official program included the conversation “Bulgarian Illustration – 2000 – 2025”, which focused on the development of children’s books and book publishing in Bulgaria.
In addition to everything happening at the Bologna Fair, as we already mentioned in a previous post, thanks to the Bulgarian Book Association this year, for the first time since the 1980s, Bulgaria has two authors in the selection for the Hans Christian Andersen Award – Maya Dalgacheva and Yasen Gyuzelev.
The AKK stand is perhaps more appropriate to call it the “exhibition”, because the goal there is different – 19 artists who are included in a curated selection. This is the second presentation of the organization and the current edition builds on and continues the story from the previous one. In addition to the illustrations, the books themselves are also shown, visual materials – business cards, postcards, contacts and a catalog. The exhibition also has a selected section with new books published in 2024, which are included on the organization’s website, there is no catalog for them and their illustrations are not presented in the exhibition. Overall, the atmosphere is very well organized, colleagues meet, there are visitors, they look with interest, conversations, jokes, laughter. The space is very well utilized, Svoboda Tsekova and Anton Staykov have created a wonderful vision and they themselves work with a vision for what is happening, I can’t help but give them a collegial credit.
Two things here impressed me, however. The first is the very obsessive presence of the entire organizational structure in the field of space, as if it were watching over its flock. Nowhere in other exhibition spaces at publishers, stands, exhibitions was there anyone who constantly sat and watched who was doing what, let alone having so many people from the team in the field of the exhibition. I won’t even mention the wardrobe – we know this native trait.
The second is that knowing the organizers, I understand the tendentious display of the same artists absolutely every time. And there will be no surprise if next year we see the same names in the “selected exhibition”. Moreover, these are not illustrations for books that have been published in the last year or two, even three, there are works from 2015, 2017, 2018, which are the same 10 years back in time, i.e. we have no relevance here. Whether this is the goal or not, I will not speculate.
However, the organization included three panels in the official Bologna program – “Translation as an Approach to Bulgarian Literature”, Kapka Kaneva took part as a mentor in the Portfolio Review program, and “Going Global: Trends and Undiscovered Voices in Contemporary Bulgarian Literature”.
But enough about the stands. This year, over 15,000 publishers are represented in Bologna, the largest number of participants to date. The illustrators’ exhibition has been expanded to present most of the long list – I will admit here that I am not sure exactly what happened to the selection, because it is not limited to the 76 shortlisted artists, as was the case in previous years, but it does not show all 324 of them, because space is limited.
The halls of Bologna Fiere also host several other official exhibitions – 30 years of BIB, Estonia – the guest country for 2025, Sidney Smith – the Andersen Award 2024, Silent Books, Ukraine – yesterday and today and many more. As well as numerous local exhibitions, such as the one of Bulgaria, which I have already mentioned, of China and of various publishers, schools and organizations.
Of course, we cannot miss the Illustrators' Wall, which with each passing year occupies an ever-increasing territory, even an unregulated one. The endless queues for portfolio reviews and meetings with publishers.
Traditionally, the biggest prize in the world of literature named after Astrid Lindgren was also awarded, the prize was won by the French writer Marion Brunet.
You can view the entire album on our Facebook page.
Colorful, colorful, meetings with many people, lectures, readings, reviews, competitions and hopes for new horizons, this is Bologna in a few words.
Ciao ragazzi, until next time.
Text and photos: Milena Radeva
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