Programme
The basic mission of Zala Publishing is to bring good books to children early in their childhood. For this purpose, it publishes quality children's literature, including children's picture books, which have been awarded several times abroad, as well as in Slovenia, especially with the Golden Pear Award, an indicator of really good children's books, also recommended by librarians.
Acclaimed authors published in Slovene language
Zala Publishing has so far published works by many renowned, award-winning authors, including Norway's Brage Prize winners (Gaute Heivoll, Håkon Øvreås or Øyvind Torseter), or British authors who have won the Carnegie Medal (Siobhan Dowd, Sally Gardner, and others) or the Kate Greenaway Medal (Levi Pinfold and many others).
Zala Publishing, for example, also published the Belgian author Isabelle Wery who received the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL) for the novel Marilyn Deboned. It has published works by Dutch authors awarded with the Silver Pen Award, for example, Emiel de Wild, or the Dutch author Tonke Dragt, her novel The Letter for the King, a Golden Slate Pencil winner and a winner of the rarely awarded Griffel der Griffels Award, an award for the best book of the past 50 years.
Awards
Zala Publishing is the proud recipient of numerous Golden Pear Awards, known in Slovene as Zlata hruška, an award for quality children's and youth literature bestowed by the Ljubljana City Library's Pionirska - Centre for Youth Literature and Librarianship for both picture books and novels. The translator Tina Mahkota, for example, received a Golden Pear Award in 2015 for her translation of the book Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd as well as an IBBY's Honour Book Award, an award of the International Board on Books for Young People, in 2016.
International cooperation
Zala Publishing cooperates with many international associations for children's and youth literature, for example, with IBBY – International Board on Books for Young People. At its events, for example, those at the bookstore of the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre or the Slovene Book Fair, it hosts internationally celebrated children's writers and illustrators, such as Antje Damm or Roddy Doyle. With all its book activities, Zala Publishing is an example of a publishing company extremely involved in current international literary events.
See also
- Slovene Section of IBBY
- Reading Badge of Slovenia Association
- Pionirska - Centre for Youth Literature and Librarianship