EDEBÉ Children's Literature Award 2020:
LA CRÒNICA D'IU ESKAR (THE CHRONICLE OF IVO CUKAR), by David Nel.lo
Ivo Cukar lives with his large family in Mrs. Atril's house. The Cukars are cockroaches and, despite some accidental deaths, they generally live happily, until the old woman dies and a cousin inherits the house. With the new owner, terribly clean, the whole family must flee before she fumigates the house.
Through the city's sewers and numerous dangers, the Cukars escape and arrive at an old hotel that turns out to be the paradise where the cockroaches believe they will find their new home. But not everything will be so easy: the hotel is already inhabited by cockroaches like them, although smaller in size.
From here, Ivo discovers the difficulties of moving freely through the world and being treated equally.
Through the curious and exploratory gaze of Ivo Cukar we will learn many things that we did not know about this species and also about the curious customs of the human beings with whom it lives.
A tribute to the fables of Aesop or Jean de La Fontaine that invites the reader to reflect on racism, the distorted and absurd concept of territory and the fight between beings of the same species.
A story of lights and shadows that captivates until the end... which is not an end.
No moral, so that everyone can draw their own conclusions.
Jury opinion
The jury highlighted the high level of the finalist works. Of the award-winning original, he points out its excellent construction and the very human features of the animal protagonists who quickly empathize with the reader.
Work presented in Catalan aimed at readers aged 10 and up.
Publication: March 2020
Fragment:
"You see, Ivo, the country can be very beautiful or it can be a disgrace, depending on how you look at it," he told me. The homeland is the place where your parents and grandparents were born, and it is very good when you say to yourself: "I was also born there and, therefore, it is my home." The homeland becomes sweeter when you long for it in the distance, when you have moved away from it. You dream about it and keep a thousand memories. But the homeland can become an eyesore if you think that it is a place that only belongs to you and those like you. Then it stops being something sweet and becomes something sour and ugly.
When dad spoke to me that way I didn't quite understand it, but I liked listening to it.
David Nel.lo
(Barcelona, 1959). Writer and translator, his literary creation has stood out in the children's and Young adult modalities, an activity in which he began in 1994.
He has published, among other works, children's stories L'Albert and the menjabrossa (1995) The forbidden portal (1999) The rebels of the cabanya (2004) The year of the lice (2007) The restaurant d'Adrià Potato (2007) The misfortune of Isolda Potato (2008) The great stranding (2009) and the youth Why not m'ho deies? (1996) The post (2002) babushka (2006) Contrajoc (2007) and Guguengol (2009).
He has won the 1994 Vaixell de Vapor awards for L'Albert and the menjabrossa, Enric Valor from narrative Young adult by Picanya 1998 by Peter Snyder, Columna Jove 2002 by The post, Cavall Fort de contes 1999 by The baldufes, October-Andròmina of narrative 2006 by The geography of the world, Ciutat d'Olot of children's fiction and Young adult 2007 by Contrajoc, Ciutat d'Olot-Marià Vayreda of narrative 2009 by The meu cor cap a tu per semper, Ramon Muntaner 2009 by Guguengol, Josep M. Folch i Torres 2010 by Ludwig i Frank, the 2011 Roc Boronat award for September to Perugia, the award Edebé of Children's Literature 2014 by La nueva vida del señor Rutin , the Prudenci Bertrana 2017 award for Melissa & Nicole, the Wide Angle of Cruïlla 2018 by Marc's second life and the last one is Sant Jordi (2019) by Friendships brought.
