The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) announced on Monday at the Bologna Children's Book Fair that author Eiko Kadono won this year's Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing. Russian artist Igor Oleynikov won the award for illustration.

IBBY awards the Hans Christian Andersen Awards to one author and one illustrator every two years for making a large contribution to children's literature. Kadono is the third Japanese recipient of the Author's Award. Michio Mado received the award in 1994, and Nahoko Uehashi, author of the original novels that inspired Production I.G's Kemono no Sou-ja Erin and Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit fantasy anime series, won the award in 2014. Suekichi Akaba (Suho's White Horse) and Mitsumasa Anno won the Illustrator's Award in 1980 and 1984, respectively.

The six novel volumes of Kadono's fantasy novel series Majo no Takkyūbin follow the coming of age of Kiki with her black cat Jiji. Kadono began the main novel series in 1985 and ended it in 2009. Kadono published a side-story centering on the character Osono in 2014.

Hayao Miyazaki directed Studio Ghibli's famous 1989 anime film adaptation of the first novel. The late theater director Yukio Ninagawa also directed a stage musical adaptation from 1993 to 1996. The first two novels inspired a live-action film starring Fūka Koshiba in 2014, a stage play at London's West End in 2016, and a new stage musical that ran in Tokyo and Osaka in 2017.

Annick Press published the first novel with an English translation by Lynne E. Riggs in 2003. That same year, Buena Vista Home Entertainment/Disney released Studio Ghibli's film on DVD in North America.

Source: Publishers Weekly (Emma Kantor)

Image via Waseda University