A year ago, the VNCE was approached by a leading collaboration of top international artists. The question was whether VNCE could provide information about Vietnamese artists who worked in a project-based and abstract manner. This resulted in an invitation to Xuan to work with the group in the Netherlands. Subsequently, VNCE found a sponsor for the travel costs.
This year, as a result of the New Year’s Video, VNCE received a very interesting email from the Bologna International Children’s Bookfair. This is the largest and most important Children’s Book Fair in the world. A year ago, the organizers had already invited Oanh, as initiator of the Da Nang B&P – Art For Children Gallery, to participate in a zoom conference.
One of the important initiatives of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in collaboration with UNESCO is the “World Directory of Children’s Book Translators”. A very accessible database, set up in collaboration with UNESCO, where you can find not only translators from the most requested languages, but also translators from so-called minority languages. The search terms are translator name; country of residence; literary genre; source language; target language; mother tongue.
Our New Years video ends with a Vietnamese girl reading one of roby’s newly translated booklets very enthusiastically.
They also really liked that in Bologna and when they went to see if the booklets were also in the directory, it turned out that Vietnam is not yet represented in it at all.
How important is such a dictionary? Very important! Certainly for a country like Vietnam that does not yet have an international network. For publishers, authors and others looking to expand their markets, these kinds of contacts are essential. And often also cost-effective because one can contact the stakeholders directly.
In short: translators, publishers… register!
It is obvious that in the near future VNCE will present work by Vietnamese illustrators, translators and children’s book authors at the Bologna children’s book fair. Anyone interested in this can contact us. Even if you are an illustrator or author who hasn’t published anything yet.
VNCE is a young company, but the people we work with have many decades of international experience.
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