Taiwan has sent its largest-ever delegation of publishers and had several local works selected for prestigious exhibits at the 2023 Bologna Children's Book Festival (BCBF), an annual children's publishing event that opened on Monday.
In a press release issued Tuesday, the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) said the Taiwan Pavilion at this year's fair featured 48 local publishers -- an increase of 40 percent over last year -- and 238 publications.
Taiwanese illustrators were also selected for inclusion in some of the festival's premier international exhibits, according to TAICCA.
This year, three Taiwanese -- Pan Hsin-ping (???), Chen Wei-hsuan (???) and Huang Liang-hsin (???) -- were among 80 artists selected from a field of over 4,000 to have their works displayed by the Illustrators Exhibition, which bills itself as the "Oscars" of the illustration industry, TAICCA said.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese illustrator Sun Jun (??) won the fair's BRAW Comics for Early Readers award, while five other Taiwan-published books were chosen for the BRAW Amazing Bookshelf, which is exhibited both in a central showcase and online, TAICCA said.
The books are: "Let's Pretend We're Fish" by Bei-Lynn (???); "Hide & Seek: The Search for the Clouded Leopard" by Page Tsou (???); "Somewhere" by Egretllu (???); "Still Young Still New" by Higo Wu (????) and Chen Pei-hsiu (???); and "Unexpected" by Yang Yun-ping (???) and Spring Wang (???).
According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, 1,456 publishers from 90 countries are participating in this year's fair, which runs from March 6-9.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel