Children and young adult book author Farhad Hassanzadeh, 54, has been nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
Hassanzadeh was introduced to the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), the non-profit organization that will announce winners of the 2018 Hans Christian Andersen Award, the Children’s Book Council of Iran reported on its website, cbc.ir.
The Hans Christian Andersen Award is the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children’s books. Every other year IBBY presents the Andersen Award to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children’s literature.
The Author’s Award has been given since 1956 and the Illustrator’s Award since 1966. The awards comprise a gold medal and a diploma, presented at a festive ceremony during the biennial IBBY Congress.
The patron of the Andersen Awards is Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II and the awards are sponsored by Nami Island Inc. Nominations for the award are made by the national branch of IBBY. The award recipients are selected by a distinguished international jury of children’s literature specialists.
The selection criteria include the aesthetic and literary qualities of writing and illustrating as well as the ability to see things from the child’s point of view and the ability to stretch the child’s curiosity and imagination. The complete works of the author and of the illustrator will be taken into consideration.
So far, the Children’s Book Council of Iran has introduced four IBBY nominees: illustrator and graphic designer Farshid Mesqali, 73; fiction writer Houshang Moradi Kermani, 72; author, playwright and folklore expert Mohammad Reza Yousefi, 63; and late painter and illustrator Nasrin Khosravi (1950-2010).
Mesqali received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1974; while Moradi Kermani was praised by juries of IBBY in 1992.
Hassanzadeh was born in Abadan, Khuzestan Province. He is co-founder of the Children and Young Adults Authors Institute, the largest NGO of Iranian authors.
He has served on the jury in various literary, film and theater festivals for children. He holds popular creative writing workshops in Iran and has been awarded numerous national awards for his works. He has been awarded the artistic emblem of literature for 25 years of successful literary works.
IBBY’s Mission
IBBY’s mission is to: promote international understanding through children’s books; give children everywhere the opportunity to have access to books with high literary and artistic standards; encourage the publication and distribution of quality children’s books, especially in developing countries; provide support and training for those involved with children and children’s literature; stimulate research and scholarly works in the field of children’s literature; and protect and uphold the rights of the child according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
