Tales from Far Away Lands Collection

Tales from far away lands collection

First volume: TOADS AND DIAMONDS

A very long time ago this tale dispersed throughout the world like a seed carried by the wind. It took root in South America, Europe and Africa. In each region people told the tale using characters, animals, trees, customs and skies that they knew. Thus it developed in a different way in each land but, amazingly, always remained the same. This book follows Toads and Diamonds on its journey through different, far-off times and lands.

Authors

Luisa The pseudonym, Luisa, honours the shepherdess from Jujuy who told Berta Vidal de Battini the story of the Coquena, exactly as she recalled it from memory. Berta Vidal de Battini was born in San Luis, Argentina, in 1900 and died when she was 84 years old. She travelled the country during more than thirty years recording the marvellous tales and legends that people told her. She wrote down every tale, just as she heard it, without changing a single sound or a single word. Ediciones Culturales Argentinas published this extraordinary work in ten, very thick volumes.

Charles Perrault Charles Perrault was born in Paris, France in 1628 and died in 1703 in the same city. He was a privileged official in the king’s court and wrote a great deal: serious poems, praising the king, about art; texts that almost no one remembers and that very few people ever feel like reading again. At the age of 55, he wrote down the tales that he had heard in the kitchen of his house when he was a boy and those that he heard in the plaza and the market, which were told by men and women who didn’t know how to read or write. The book is called Tales of Times Past but is known as Tales of Mother Goose (because there was a pretty drawing of a goose on the cover of the book). The stories in this book – “Little Red Riding Hood”, “Cinderella”, “The Fairies”, among many others – still endure in people’s memory even after more than 300 years have gone by.

Birago Diop Birago Diop was born in 1906 in Ouakam, Senegal, and died in 1989 in Dakar. While he was studying veterinary science in France, he became friends with other young African writers who championed “blackness”. On the cold winter nights in France, when he missed the heat of his land, Birago Diop wrote down the tales that Amodou Komba, his family’s griot, had told him. He also wrote the tales his grandmother told him at night, and those that he heard other oral narrators tell on his journeys through Africa. In Africa, the trade of griot is handed down from generation to generation. Griots know how to tell the entire history of a village from memory, tales that entertain and teach at the same time, stories of wars and many other things. They accompany their tales with the beating of a drum, gestures, tones of voice and infinite grace. Birago Diop has achieved the almost impossible task of passing the grace of the spoken word to the written word. Ruth Kaufman Ruth Kaufman was born in Buenos Aires in 1961. A tireless reader of marvellous tales, myths and legends, she has devised this collection and put this volume of tales together.

Valerio Vidali Valerio Vidali was born in 1983 in Lodi, Italy. He studied illustration at the Instituto Eurpeo de Diseño de Milán. He has collaborates with the magazines Veinticuatro, Marie Claire, Educación y biblioteca, Guerini e Associati, Liber. His first book for children is called Sin nombre (No name). He was selected for the illustrators’ show at the Bologna Book Fair in 2005; Ilustrarte, International Biennial of Illustrations, Barreiro, Portugal in 2005 and 2007; and the Zagreb Biennial of Illustration, 2008.

Eleonora Arroyo Eleonora Arroyo is an illustrator and painter. She graduated from the National Schools of Fine Arts Manuel Belgrano and Prilidiano Pueyrredon in Buenos Aires. She studied under Roberto Páez, Francisco Travieso and Ricardo Garabito. She has illustrated children’s books for several publishing houses in Argentina. She was selected to participate in the Biennial of Illustrations in 2005, and in the Argentina Illustrator’s Pavilion at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2007.

Bianki Diego Bianchi (Bianki) was born in La Plata, Argentina, in 1963. He is a designer, illustrator, and editor. He illustrates for the independent written press and he illustrates children’s books for Argentinian and European publishing houses. Some of his books are: Restorán (Restaurant, 2003), Pleine Lune (Full Moon, 2003) and Candombe, fièvre du Carnaval (Candombe, Carnival Fever, 2004). His illustrations can be seen every week in Revista de Cultura Ñ, the cultural magazine of Clarín newspaper in Buenos Aires, a publication where Bianki has illustrated articles in different sections and supplements since 1990. His illustrations can also be seen in Público, a Madrid newspaper, in the Opinion and Culture sections. Futile Papers is his recently published book in which he compiles the work of the last ten years as a press illustrator. His work has also been published during many years in the Argentinian magazines Para ti and Billiken, which were the first ones to show his initial editorial illustration work. He has collaborated with: Viva Magazine, Noticias, Play boy, Rumbos, Somos, Plena, First, Claudia, Genios, Lamujerdemivida, Panorama, Humi, El Péndulo, and Fierro, among others.

Collection Tales from far away lands Format: 21.5 x 16 cm (horizontal) 42 pp