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Silent Book Contest - Gianni De Conno Award: the 2023 finalists

Let's discover more about the stories and the authors of the 12 projects

  |   TOPICS: Awards
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Here are the finalists of the X Edition of the Silent Book Contest 2023 – Gianni De Conno Award!

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After the great success of the 9th edition of the Prize, the Silent Book Contest has started again with its 10th edition.
The organizing committee has Carthusia Edizioni as main organizer and consolidated leader of the SBC, flanked by important partners such as the Bologna Children's Book Fair, the Turin International Book Fair, the Municipality of Mulazzo and the Montereggio Paese dei Librai Association, IOB International Organization of Book Towns, Centro per il Libro e la Lettura, and IBBY Italy, who shared this extraordinary journey with us again this year.
We can also announce with pleasure that, alongside the sponsor BPER Banca which confirms its contribution to the award, a new sponsor joins: Granarolo S.p.A. has chosen to support such an inclusive and international project as the Silent Book Contest, starting from this edition.
Thanks to the contribution of BPER, the Silent Book Contest Junior Award also continues, in its fourth edition, which, in addition to the International Jury Award, includes an International Children's Jury that will judge and decree its winner among the 12 finalist works of this year.
Another confirmation is represented by the renewed media partnership with Rai Kids and Rai Radio 3 for the events connected to the Silent Book Contest – Gianni De Conno Award: for all partners it is an important recognition of the work carried out in recent years, with passion and determination and the results achieved.
At the 10th Edition of the Silent Book Contest – Gianni De Conno Award, which closed on February 5, 2023, 280 unpublished works from 56 different countries and territories took part: a confirmation of great participation that testifies to the importance of the cultural promotion work carried out in all these years by Silent Book Contest among illustrators and operators in Italy and in the world, which has led to constant growth and diffusion.
The International Jury, chaired by Walter Fochesato (scholar of children's literature and history of illustration – Italy) and composed of Emanuela Bussolati (illustrator – Italy), Eros Miari (member of the editorial board of the Turin International Book Fair – Italy), Rina Allek (winner of the Silent Book Contest 2020 – Russia), Elena Pasoli (director of Bologna Children's Book Fair – Italy), Sonja Riva (writer and journalist of RSI – Switzerland), Sara Wang (CEO of Sidee Cultural Communication – China), Javier Zabala (illustrator – Spain), Patrizia Zerbi (publisher of Carthusia Edizioni – Italy) has selected 12 unpublished finalist projects with the support of Costanza De Conno of the SBC Organizing Secretariat.

The 12 finalist projects are:

  • "E poi un giorno" by Marta Herrera (Mexico)
  • "I'm big and small" by Jiaona Qui (China)
  • "Il ninja innamorato" by Alessandro Stilla (Italy)
  • "Into the white" by Chiara Ficarelli (Italy)
  • "L’ultimo viaggio" by Zongxi Deng (China)
  • "La fuga" by Agim Sulaj (Albania)
  • "La roccia" by Antonio Bonanno (Italy)
  • "Legno" by Montserrat Batet Creixell (Spain)
  • Night expedition" by Aleksandra Artymowska (Poland)
  • "Piantala" by Alessia Roselli (Italy)
  • "The adventure of Doris Florence Valentine" by Florence Waters (UK)
  • "To the moon" by Lingxiao Zhang (China)
 
On March 6, 2023 at 5.00 pm, at the "Illustrator’s Cafè" of the Bologna Children's Book Fair, there will be the presentation event of the 12 finalists of the competition with the participation of the jury and some partners of the award.
At the end of the presentation there will also be the award ceremony of the winner of the last 2022 edition of the Silent Book Contest Junior, Irene Frigo, chosen by the jury of children with her silent book "Cercasi gamba!", just published in the "Silent Book" series by Carthusia.
The event will be preceded at 3.30 pm by the inauguration of the SBC 2023 Exhibition with all the finalists, in Hall 26, right next to the international bookshop.
Also from 6th March 2023, the Virtual Exhibition of the 12 finalists SBC 2023 will be active, organized by Carthusia and visitable via links on www.silentbookcontest.com and from Carthusia’s website www.carthusiaedizioni.it.
Subsequently, in mid-May, at the Turin International Book Fair the Award Ceremony of the winning book of the SBC 2023 will take place in the presence of the Jury and the winner Author / Illustrator with the official delivery of the printed volume and, also there, the inauguration of the physical exhibition of the finalists.

Since 2018 the Silent Book Contest is dedicated to Gianni De Conno, its ideator and creator. An artist of great impact, one of the greatest illustrators of the Italian publishing scene, in which he operated a dense dreamlike vein sustained by an inclination to hyperrealism, a magical and surrealism, a sort of profoundly original creative oxymoron. Gianni De Conno was also a true “Grandmaster”, he illustrated and interpreted the world, he taught with passion and care, in this little and small editorial world, he made a lot of other extraordinary things in his work.

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