Fiction
بيت الحكمة (House of Wisdom)
Text: Bodour Al Qasimi
Illustrations: Majid Zakeri Younesi
Publisher: Kalimat
Country: United Arab Emirates, 2024
What the jury said:
This book won over the hearts and gaze of the jury for the power of its creativity and the overall excellence of its production. The historical events of the destruction of the celebrated Baghdad Library – one of the largest intercultural institutions of all times, in a city that was a centre for the exchange of ideas, the art of translation and the celebration of cultures and languages – are brought to life again in these intense pages like a timeless force. The text is characterised by an elegant and confident literary style in perfect harmony with the stunning iconography that recalls the ancient Islamic miniatures reimagined in a modern context using limited yet powerful colour combinations, with the black and green standing out in particular. The book contains memorable images, like that of the river that turns black, dyed by the ink from the books that have been thrown into its waters. The work appears today as both a warning and a tribute to the importance of books and literature, to dialogue and the peaceful cohabitation between cultures, a universal plea that resonates like a keepsake and that requires protection, resistance and care for the treasures of humanity and culture as a whole.
Non Fiction
Per mille camicette al giorno (For a Thousand Blouses a Day)
Text: Serena Ballista
Illustrations: Sonia Maria Luce Possentini
Publisher: Orecchio Acerbo
Country: Italy, 2024
What the jury said:
Deeply emotional and personal historical account of New York’s worst ever industrial accident. Evocative storytelling using the garment as a narrative voice to guide the reader through themes of migration, workers’ rights, the oppression of women and the exploitation of human capital. The highly emotive cover image, combined with a poignant title draws the reader in, the artwork combines witness statements, archive references and exploits a graphic novel/picture book format. The expressive, black and white imagery articulates the tragic and painful subject matter, evolving into a beautiful dedication to our heroine Rose.
Opera Prima
빨간 사과가 먹고 싶다면 (If You Want to Eat a Red Apple)
Text: Jin Joo
Illustrations: Ga Hee Lee
Publisher: Finger Publishing
Country: South Korea, 2024
What the jury said:
An incredible photographic story immerses the reader in the everyday life of a Korean childhood, in its poetic and elusive aspects, in the funny and hidden gestures, in the movements and visions of an instant, which make it universal. The act of waiting, an apple tree planted by a grandfather when a child was born, the apple that ripens, desire and time, the arc of experience and the dilation of the present moment, the relationships between generations, the body, taste and contact with the earth, play, complicity, the wonder of change. With delicacy and kindness, the work offers the reader visions of great and powerful beauty, suspended in a rarefied language that doesn’t shy away from nonsense or lyrical flow but plays with repetition and rhyme to tell the mystery of time and the meaning of childhood. Together with photographic and textual language, the typography plays a central role in the narration, emphasising the voice, amplifying and discussing its expressive boundaries: these pages are places worth lingering on with amazement to enjoy a slice of life, a world that is at once interior and concrete, and a mindful gaze that seems as if it has been enclosed and lent to the reader.
Toddler
Le coq polyglotte (The Multilingual Cockerel)
Text and illustrations: Marie Darme-Rizzo
Publisher: Hélium
Country: France, 2024
What the jury said:
Elegant, direct, brilliant, this ingenious hardback book uses a customary format to take the reader on an original linguistic journey to discover the crow of the rooster, interpreted differently, as is well known, in different languages. The book invites adult and child readers alike to play together with the sounds of the languages, from Japanese to Italian, from Swahili to Kabyle, Greek to Vietnamese, Icelandic to Ukrainian, while the typography serves to accompany and amplify the sounds. An excellent piece of publishing work, the graphics and chromatic palette were clearly studied in great detail, the book is destined to be read many times over. The map of the world at the end of the book invites the reader to play with other countries and languages, and expresses the broad horizon of this cultural proposal.
New Horizons
Dalla finestra (Through the Window)
Text: Laura Cattabianchi
Illustrations: Laura Cattabianchi and Patrizio Anastasi
Publisher: Start Edizioni
Country: Italy, 2024
What the jury said:
This important book with die-cut pages has handmade tactile illustrations, a lyrical and joyful text in black and in Braille about the evocative metaphor of the window. It is the result of a collaboration between various authors: a visual artist, an author who is also an atelierista, and an association active in design and educational research into contemporary art as a meeting place and a tool for mediation. The book is playful, shows significant attention to detail and has a valuable editorial direction: the tactile dimension here is not intended to selectively address those who cannot see or cannot read independently but, on the contrary, draws attention to the need to nourish the sensory dimension of the aesthetic experience as something regenerating and productive for everyone. Accompanied by a kit to make a new tactile book, it therefore encourages the circulation and production of excellent publications aimed at all readers, and all the senses.
Sustainability (Special Category)
Art is a Voice
Text and illustrations: Kripa
Publisher: Art1st Enterprises
Country: India, 2024
What the jury said:
Activism through art that addresses themes around social and environmental justice, empowerment and citizenship. Enabling and inviting the reader to use their art and voice to articulate their personal perspectives on the world in which they live. A striking, dynamic and pictorially rich multimedia and interactive publication of diverse visual languages.
This book provides an inspiring call to contribute, coproduce and rethink our agency to evolve ideas for a fairer future through the power of art.
Comics - Early Reader
Gutenachtgeschichten für Celeste - Ein sehr gruseliges Bilderbuch (Bedtime Stories for Celeste - a Very Scary Picture Book)
Text and art: Nikolaus Heidelbach and Ole Könnecke
Publisher: Carl Hanser Verlag
Country: Germany, 2024
What the jury said:
The book presents a very creative collaboration of two artists with very different styles, one very cartoony and one closer to fine illustration. A little girl wants her brother to tell her scary bedtime stories. He doesn’t succeed even after many tries, so she takes the lead with unexpected results. Each spread has a series of comic panels telling the story, often presented very humorously, and a page with beautiful and spooky illustrations depicting dragons, bats, man-eating plants, and other fantastic creatures. Ole Könnecke comics pages show the brother and sister interacting in a very natural and humorous manner, with the sister being very feisty; at the same time, Heidelbach’s illustrations evoke traditional fairy tale monsters, reminding Brothers Grimm’s scary tales. It is a good book for parents to read with their children at bedtime, encouraging both to create their own scary stories.
Comics - Middle Grade
Dita Dor (Dictator)
Text and art: António Jorge Gonçalves
Publisher: Edições Assembleia da República
Country: Portugal, 2024
What the jury said:
This book recounts a fictionalized and tragic experience of fascist dictatorship, inspired by Portugal’s history. An imaginary dictator (clearly inspired by Antonio Salazar) demands blind obedience from the entire population even when his orders are insane and inhuman. Through the eyes of young Antonio, the readers feel in their bones what it means to live under a dictatorship that poisons every vignette and every page. The author manages to tell the story in an energetic style, with strong colors, expressionistic geometries and a liberating ending. This book is part of a series called “Missão: Democracia”, published by the Portuguese Parliament in 2024 as part of the many cultural initiatives celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution that occurred in 1974. The collection features 12 picture books, each by different Portuguese children’s writers and illustrators, exploring themes such as democracy and freedom as well as delving into how the national democratic system works. The collection aims to be an introductory path to the basic concepts of democracy aimed at young readers.
Gonçalves’ comic book is an important title in our current times, demonstrating how a democracy can become a dictatorship in very short order, and educating young people in how to recognize the signs of fascism and fight for freedom.
Comics - Young Adult
La Trahison d’Olympe Livre 1 (The Betrayal of Olympe #1)
Text and art: Jean Dalin
Publisher: Sarbacane
Country: France, 2024
What the jury said:
Marv was a promising young inventor before he lost it all. Giving up on his dreams, he becomes a delivery boy. But one morning he must deliver a letter for “Olympe,” the wife of the powerful and terrible Carlus Traitruss. Thus begins a journey bordering on the psychedelic, with an adventure told in huge pages and made up of splash-pages, detailed architecture, futuristic cities, infinite worlds, images to be explored at length with the risk of being trapped by their graphic and compositional vortex. The colors, sometimes muted, sometimes striking, transport the reader into the depth of the image. The wonder of these pages brings one back to the comics of such great masters as McCay, Moebius and Schuiten. But as one goes on reading, the extraordinary variety of places, the variety of choices and the visionary ability of the author show themselves in all their originality. All of these elements make it all the more impressive that this is a debut.
Find more information here.
[Quelle: Pressemitteilung]