Held between November 7 and 10, the International Book Fair in Istanbul hosted Romania as its Guest of Honour.
Held between November 7 and 10, the International Book Fair in Istanbul hosted Romania as its Guest of Honour. The motto of this year's edition was "We owe you a few words". Romania had a complex agenda, featuring well-established contemporary authors. Gabriela Adamesteanu, Matei Visniec, Dan Lungu, Octavian Soviany, Carmen Musat, Daniel Cristea-Enache, Florin Bican, Lucian Dan Teodorovici, Radu Vancu, Vasile Ernu and Alexandru Matei are some of the writers who presented their volumes and interacted with the reading public that visited Romania's pavilion.
Throughout the entire duration of the Istanbul Book Fair, Romania also hosted a series of debates featuring literary figures from Romania and Turkey and book launches, both at its pavilion and at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Istanbul. Among them were Dan Lungu's I'm a Communist Biddy!, brought out in Turkish by Bence Kitap Publishers and Florin Irimia's Dark Windows, published by Aylak Adam. Children's events were also held. The Uskudar Tekel Stage and the Sainte Pulcherie French High School in Istanbul played host to two plays by Matei Visniec, attended by the playwright himself: The Chekhov Machine and The Word Progress on my Mother's Lips doesn't Ring True.
The debate that stirred the public's interest the most was entitled "Children's literature - a serious matter" and was attended by Oana Ispir from the Illustrators' Club and writers Florin Bican and Vasile Ernu. Asked what exactly prompted him to approach children's literature, Vasile Ernu said he had always been a fan of children's literature, and that there is an important moment in childhood when reading becomes paramount:
"I started looking into this phenomenon out of sheer interest. I wanted to understand why children's books are so important. The idea that the 1990s brought about more openness in this respect was false, because the book market only felt more caged. Whatever was available in terms of children's books were works by foreign authors translated into Romanian. People were deluded into thinking the market was very diverse, whereas in fact all you could find were Disney-like books. And don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Disney stories, I grew up with this kind of stories myself, but we're left with only one choice. And the worst part is that books by Romanian authors started slowly disappearing. I think what's important is that we tell our stories plainly, so children can understand them, and to share with them our opinions and concerns".
Another question journalist Carmen Musat asked those who took part in the debate was if we could set up a hierarchy between image and text, to what extent the text can compel its illustration, and the other way round. Briefly, which of the two came first, the text or the image? Writer and translator Florin Bican believes that the text came first, unmistakably, but that things shouldn't be like this any longer. In order to encourage communication between writers and illustrators, he came up with the idea that writers and graphic artists should work together. The outcome of that kind of joint work is entitled "The Bookatteria of Texts and Images. An illustrated children's stories anthology", brought out by the Pro Editura Print and Publishers. It is a book-manifesto, it is the proof that there still are fresh resources as regards Romanian original texts for children, but also the potential for quality books illustration. In the void created by the disappearance of Romanian books for children in the 1980s, Bookatteria demonstrates we can still bridge the gap between ourselves and an apparently lost generation. With details on that, here is writer Florin Bican again:
"At the suggestion of Oana Ispir, the one who initiated the Illustrators' Club, we suggested writers that they should try their hand at writing texts for children as well, to be used by illustrators in their attempt to make the most of their talent and imagination. And I daresay it was a happy collaboration, illustrators were happy to illustrate texts at the suggestion of writers, while in turn, authors were delighted to see what kind of illustration their stories were capable of generating. Among the writers who this year took part in the Book Fair in Istanbul, three could also be found in this volume, as authors of children's stories: Vasile Ernu, Doina Rusti and myself, Florin Bican. The idea of the book was to draw attention to the fact that in Romania, there are both publishers and illustrators for children." When asked if literature for children entailed a different kind of approach regarding the recipient, here is what Vasile Ernu answered:
"Indeed, when you are an author of literature and you also start writing for children you realize things tend to become even more intricate. Because in time I understood it was easy to lie to the grown-ups, but impossible to lie to children. If you succeed in writing a book children think is captivating, that is something really great. Because you need to surprise children, and children have not just as yet become altered by lies as we are.. And a book for children comes out as a whole, with the child still unable to tell the text from the image, like we do. That is why the word illustrator sounds a bit inappropriate when we speak about drawings for those books for children. The one who writes, as much as the one who does the drawings, both of them are authors."
Romania's participation as a guest of honour in the Istanbul International Book Fair was organised jointly by the Ministry of Culture and the Dimitrie Cantemir Cultural Institute in Istanbul.
(Translated by: E. Nasta; edited by: M. Igantescu)
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