Edward van de Vendel

Really, OMG! These are the words that popped up in my head just now, as I got a mail stating that I am shortlisted for the international Hans Christian Award 2024 - such an honour, oh, wow.

The Hans Christian Andersen Award Organization describes the award at their website like this: 'Given every other year by IBBY, the Hans Christian Andersen Awards recognize lifelong achievement and are given to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important, lasting contribution to children's literature.'

The award was founded in 1956 and is given to both an author and an illustrator, every second year. Previous winners include Astrid Lindgren, Tove Jansson, Maurice Sendak, Wolf Erlbruch and Aidan Chambers. The only Dutch winners ever were Annie M.G. Schmidt and Max Velthuijs.

The shortlist consists of six authors and six illustrators, and the winner will be announced at the 8th of April in Bologna. Congratulations to Bart Moeyaert also, who is, if I counted right, shortlisted for the 4th time. These are the other names (chosen out of 59 longlisted candidates):

authors:
Marina Colasanti from Brazil
Heinz Janisch from Austria
Lee Geum-yi from the Republic of Korea
Bart Moeyaert from Belgium
Timo Parvela from Finland
Edward van de Vendel from the Netherlands

illustrators:
Cai Gao from China
Iwona Chmielewska from Poland
Nelson Cruz from Brazil
Elena Odriozola from Spain
Sydney Smith from Canada
Paloma Valdivia from Chile

More info is to be read here. And again: oh, wow, and: what?!?