Cornabou - Revista de Literatura Infantil i Juvenil - Childrens Literature
Articles
Catalan Juvenile Literature
Andreu Sotorra
- Juvenile literature is one of the areas which has seen one of the most marked increases within Catalan literature over the last twenty years. The border between juvenile and adult literature is often difficulted to define. For this reason, a fair number of Catalan authors also publish in collections dor young people. And, on the contrary, many readers of juvenile books switch between the latter and titles taken from general collections.
- Within the field of juvenile literature there is a preponderance of narrative, published in collections belonging to different genres. On the other hand, poetry and theatre --though available in the field of children's literature, are disappearing. Adventure stories, detective fiction, detective stories with young people as the heroes, science-fiction, the combination of rural and urban spaces, social comentary, ecological concerns, travel writing, knowledge of other cultures, current themes which identifily adolescent readers with fictional characters and books which reflect current juvenile films are some of the most common parameters.
- Apart from this, translations of classics from world literature for young people have many editions and adaptations in Catalan. What is more, contemporary authors working in other languages are translated on a continual basis, especially those coming from German and English literature, and, to a lesser extent, those from French.
- The similarity of themes between translated authors and local ones means that there are few differents between them, except for those arising from particular cultural references introduced in the corresponding narratives. Despite everything, there is little translation of Catalan juvenile literature into other languages, if we exclude the exchanges --still limited-- whin the Castilian, Basque and Galician languages, which tend to be typical of publishing houses whose market extends over the whole of Spain, but without any criteria as regards evaluation of the work translated.
- Publishers and the public administration contribute, as happens in the case of children's literature, to literary creation for young people. Publishers organise literary awards, in search of new original texts. Institutional grants and awards are also avalaible. At the moment, ot the hundred or so writers who dedicate thelselves to Catalan children's and juvenile literature, the majority write literature for adolescents.
- ANDREU SOTORRA
- Catalan Writing, n. 17-18, november 2002, p. 98.
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