Held between
\nNovember 7 and 10, the International Book Fair in Istanbul hosted Romania as
\nits Guest of Honour. The motto of this year’s edition was We owe you a few
\nwords. Romania had a complex agenda, featuring well-established contemporary
\nauthors. Gabriela Adamesteanu, Matei Visniec, Dan Lungu, Octavian Soviany,
\nCarmen Musat, Daniel Cristea-Enache, Florin Bican, Lucian Dan Teodorovici, Radu
\nVancu, Vasile Ernu and Alexandru Matei are some of the writers who presented
\ntheir volumes and interacted with the reading public that visited Romania’s
\npavilion. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Throughout the
\nentire duration of the Istanbul Book Fair, Romania also hosted a series of
\ndebates featuring literary figures from Romania and Turkey and book launches,
\nboth at its pavilion and at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Istanbul. Among
\nthem were Dan Lungu’s I’m a Communist Biddy!, brought out in Turkish by
\nBence Kitap Publishers and Florin Irimia’s Dark Windows, published by
\nAylak Adam. Children’s events were also held. The Uskudar Tekel Stage and the
\nSainte Pulcherie French High School in Istanbul played host to two plays by
\nMatei Visniec, attended by the playwright himself: The Chekhov Machine
\nand The Word Progress on my Mother’s Lips doesn’t Ring True. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The debate that
\nstirred the public’s interest the most was entitled Children’s literature – a
\nserious matter and was attended by Oana Ispir from the Illustrators’ Club and
\nwriters Florin Bican and Vasile Ernu. Asked what exactly prompted him to
\napproach children’s literature, Vasile Ernu said he had always been a fan of
\nchildren’s literature, and that there is an important moment in childhood when
\nreading becomes paramount: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
I started looking
\ninto this phenomenon out of sheer interest. I wanted to understand why
\nchildren’s books are so important. The idea that the 1990s brought about more
\nopenness in this respect was false, because the book market only felt more
\ncaged. Whatever was available in terms of children’s books were works by
\nforeign authors translated into Romanian. People were deluded into thinking the
\nmarket was very diverse, whereas in fact all you could find were Disney-like
\nbooks. And don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Disney stories, I grew up
\nwith this kind of stories myself, but we’re left with only one choice. And the
\nworst part is that books by Romanian authors started slowly disappearing. I
\nthink what’s important is that we tell our stories plainly, so children can
\nunderstand them, and to share with them our opinions and concerns. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Another question journalist Carmen Musat asked those who
\ntook part in the debate was if we could set up a hierarchy between image and
\ntext, to what extent the text can compel its illustration, and the other way
\nround. Briefly, which of the two came first, the text or the image? Writer and
\ntranslator Florin Bican believes that the text came first, unmistakably, but
\nthat things shouldn’t be like this any longer. In order to encourage communication
\nbetween writers and illustrators, he came up with the idea that writers and
\ngraphic artists should work together. The outcome of that kind of joint work is
\nentitled The Bookatteria of Texts and Images. An illustrated children’s
\nstories anthology, brought out by the Pro Editura Print and Publishers. It is
\na book-manifesto, it is the proof that there still are fresh resources as
\nregards Romanian original texts for children, but also the potential for
\nquality books illustration. In the void created by the disappearance of
\nRomanian books for children in the 1980s, Bookatteria demonstrates we can still
\nbridge the gap between ourselves and an apparently lost generation. With
\ndetails on that, here is writer Florin Bican again: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
At the suggestion
\nof Oana Ispir, the one who initiated the Illustrators’ Club, we suggested
\nwriters that they should try their hand at writing texts for children as well,
\nto be used by illustrators in their attempt to make the most of their talent
\nand imagination. And I daresay it was a happy collaboration, illustrators were
\nhappy to illustrate texts at the suggestion of writers, while in turn, authors
\nwere delighted to see what kind of illustration their stories were capable of
\ngenerating. Among the writers who this
\nyear took part in the Book Fair in Istanbul, three could also be found in this
\nvolume, as authors of children’s stories: Vasile Ernu, Doina Rusti and myself,
\nFlorin Bican. The idea of the book was to draw attention to the fact that in
\nRomania, there are both publishers
\nand illustrators for children. When
\nasked if literature for children entailed a different kind of approach
\nregarding the recipient, here is what Vasile Ernu answered:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Indeed, when you are an author of literature and you also
\nstart writing for children you realize things tend to become even more
\nintricate. Because in time I understood
\nit was easy to lie to the grown-ups, but impossible to lie to children. If you
\nsucceed in writing a book children think is captivating, that is something
\nreally great. Because you need to surprise children, and children have not just
\nas yet become altered by lies as we are.. And a book for children comes out as
\na whole, with the child still unable to tell the text from the image, like we
\ndo. That is why the word illustrator sounds a bit inappropriate when we speak
\nabout drawings for those books for children. The one who writes, as much as the
\none who does the drawings, both of them are authors.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Romania’s participation as a guest of honour
\nin the Istanbul International Book Fair was organised jointly by the Ministry
\nof Culture and the Dimitrie Cantemir Cultural Institute in Istanbul.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(Translated by: E. Nasta; edited by: M. Igantescu)<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Held between November 7 and 10, the International Book Fair in Istanbul hosted Romania as its Guest of Honour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":160758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[44752,39550],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-160757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-istanbul-book-fair","tag-romanian-literature"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n