Mongolian Storytelling at IBBY London

Greetings from the International Board on Books For Young Readers (IBBY) World Congress in London! The event took place at the Imperial College London August 23-26th. I had the opportunity to speak at this conference on "Why I Wrote About an Iranian Heroine." It was fantastic to meet writers, editors, librarians and educators from all over the world. In future blog posts I will introduce you to several of the people I met.

This cartoon was drawn by the Mongolian storyteller Dashdondog Jamba. He said it is a protrait that he drew of himself when he was five years old. You might notice his small ear, drawn this way because when people annoyed him with what they said. His right hand has more fingers than his left because he uses it more often than the other hand. And, he has many legs because he is always running around doing chores for everyone.

I met another writer from Mongolia Ligedeng Orlet. He has written novels for kids and adults and explained that hardly any Mongolian literature is translated into languages other than Chinese or Russian. They also do not have much literature from around the world translated into Mongolian. This is a situation he would like to see improved.

Dashdondog Jamba (right) and Ligedeng Orlet at the reception for the Hans Christian Anderson awards.

Click on the following link to hear Dashdondog telling a story in Mongolian language.