The Taiwan Pavilion at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2024, organized by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) and co-organized by the Taipei Book Fair Foundation, showcased nearly 300 original Taiwanese titles and invited four Taiwanese illustrators to join the event. In addition, for the first time, TAICCA collaborated with “BolognaBookPlus”, the fair’s business project, and participated in “Call Your Agent” training event and the Translation Forum, aiming to expand the international market for Taiwanese visual creations.
Curated by Page Tsou, the pavilion consultant, the Taiwan Pavilion at the 2024 Bologna Children’s Book Fair shares the theme of “Taiwan Story Island”, which revolves around the ocean, featuring vibrant blue as the primary color, reflecting Taiwan’s geographical feature of being surrounded by the sea. The green area in the middle represents the imaginative “Taiwan Story Island.”
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This year, 59 publishing houses are showcased in the Taiwan Pavilion, representing a total of 298 books. The physical exhibition area includes the following sections:
Award-winning Books: 29 books in total, showcasing the winners of the BolognaRagazzi Award from Taiwan, as well as recent winners of the Golden Tripod Awards, Golden Comic Awards, and Children’s Book and Young Adult Novels Award from TIBE Book Prize.
Recommended Titles: Showcasing 90 Taiwanese original titles, published between 2022 and 2023, with international market potential.
Exhibitors’ Zone: Featuring 127 books recommended by 10 Taiwanese publishing houses with potential for international rights exchage.
Featured Illustrators: Works by the four featured illustrators— Croter Hung, Pei-Hsiu Chen, maniniwei, and Yuan-Cin Jheng—14 books in total, including personal profiles and illustrations.
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This year, Yuan-Cin Jheng, one of the four featured Taiwanese illustrator at the Taiwan Pavilion, participated in the Bologna Illustrators Exhibition, where 3,520 creators from 81 countries competed. “Prison,” a piece from his “Addresses of Letters” collection, earned him a spot among the 78 globally awarded projects. Jheng used wax strips and water-based pigments to create a rough texture with low-saturation from the carbon bar. Whether it’s a heavily guarded prison, a sturdy fortress, or a busy factory, said Jheng, each address symbolizes a part of his inner self that is difficult to reach. The black postal car in the painting is busy delivering letters, hoping that everyone can receive the messages sent to them. Jheng has been creating picture books for over 10 years, and for him, illustration can be both an observation of life and a form of inner healing.
The other three featured illustrators joining the fair with the Taiwan Pavilion— Croter Hung, Pei-Hsiu Chen, and maniniwei— all have had their works selected for “The BRAW Amazing Bookshelf” since 2022.
Croter specializes in combining various styles and designs, employing surreal and transformative techniques in his creations. While he has produced many commercial illustration works, he began creating picture books in recent years. His work “What Would Take You Away” was selected in 2022.
maniniwei, originally from Malaysia but living in Taiwan for many years, is a writer, poet, and painter. Her work “My Sister’s Empty House” was also selected in 2022.
Pei-Hsiu Chen has been nominated multiple times for the 3×3 Magazine Annual Illustration Competition in the United States and has received the New Talent Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. With extensive experience in residency programs, her picture book “Still Young Still New” was selected in 2023.
During the exhibition period, the four of them will have signing and drawing events at the Taiwan Pavilion to interact and engage with readers.
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To promote the export of Taiwanese picture books rights, TAICCA signed up the “BolognaBookPlus” (BBPlus) for two professional publishing forums. On April 9th, Emily Chuang, the founder of Emily Books Agency and Emily Publishing Company, will speak at the “Panel Discussion: Author Representation Around the World” to discuss author representation with representatives from France, Spain, and Norway. On April 10th, “The Translation Forum/Books from Taiwan: Discover and Translate” will feature discussions by Kim Pai, founder of the PaiSha Agency, and Sushin, Managing Director of B.K. Agency, along with representatives from the TAICCA, on how Taiwan promotes its publications overseas. The Taiwan Pavilion will also host two matchmaking events with Italian and Chilean publishers on April 9th and 10th. Dr. Jiun-Wei Lu, Chief Executive Officer of TAICCA, pointed out that Taiwan boasts a wealth of illustration and picture books and has won various awards at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair over the years, demonstrating the strength of Taiwan’s cultural content. He hopes that, by joining rights business activities at international fairs, Taiwan can be connected to more trade resources, bringing more Taiwanese publications and creators to the global stage.