In 2012 the Italian branch of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) established a library on Lampedusa Island, Italy for the use of local children but also for the many refugee children arriving there from Africa and the Middle East. The challenge was to find books to appeal to children of different ages and from diverse cultural and linguistic backgroundsbooks that could provide some respite for children traumatised by displacement and conflict. Wordless picturebooks were identified as an ideal genre, given they can be enjoyed by children of all ages without the restriction of language barriers. The Lampedusa Library initiative led to the creation of a collection of wordless picturebooks, comprising more than a hundred titles, donated from over twenty countries. One set of this collection remains in Lampedusa while another has evolved into a travelling exhibition, the "Silent Books Project". Since 2013 this exhibition has toured many countries with the aim of inviting readers from different cultural backgrounds both to engage with these picturebooks and reflect upon the reasons for the Silent Books Project's existence in the first place. In this article I will first discuss the origins of the Silent Book project on Lampedusa Island and provide a brief overview of the IBBY organisation and its aims. Wordless picturebooks will then be situated within current academic research on picturebooks. Finally, a selection of titles chosen for the Silent Books project will be examined in more detail and some of the experiences involving the Silent Books Project's visit to Ireland in spring 2017 will also be outlined. Highlighted in this article will be the silent power of pictures in such wordless narratives to aid child refugees in regaining some agency and to foster empathy in readers who have never been forced to leave their home.
Cet article est consacré au cas de René Schickele (1883-1940), auteur alsacien bilingue, qui a grandi en parlant le français à la maison, mais dont l’œuvre littéraire est principalement écrite en langue allemande. L’héritage biculturel de Schickele et l’époque agitée qu’il a vécue lorsque l’Alsace a été annexée au Second Empire allemand, avant de retourner à la France, après l’expérience traumatisante de la Première Guerre mondiale, l’ont profondément et durablement marqué. En tant qu’observateur avisé des événements politiques européens contemporains, il conférait à l’Alsace un rôle crucial en tant que médiateur culturel entre ses voisins rivaux, pour créer des relations franco-allemandes harmonieuses et assurer la paix en Europe. Cette mission, qu’il appelait « geistiges Elsässertum », est un leitmotiv que l’on retrouve dans la plupart de ses œuvres. Cet article examine la façon dont Schickele promeut son idée du « geistiges Elsässertum » dans son drame controversé, Hans im Schnakenloch. Des références à sa trilogie romanesque de l’entre-deux-guerres, Das Erbe am Rhein, viennent élargir la perspective pour mieux comprendre les enjeux.
Born into a Franco‐German bilingual environment, René Schickele (1883–1940) grew up in an Alsace that had been annexed to the Second German Empire since the Franco‐Prussian war but which still retained cultural links to France. During this phase of the region's troubled history, which led up to the outbreak of World War I, Schickele insisted on the necessity for Alsace not only to retain its double cultural heritage but also to develop its potential to be a mediator between its neighbouring rivals. Such pacifist discourse was viewed with hostility and suspicion at a time when nationalist sentiment was reaching its apogee. Schickele poignantly depicts the identity crisis and trauma for the people of Alsace at this climactic point of Franco‐German rivalry in his wartime drama Hans im Schnakenloch. The controversy which Hans im Schnakenloch provoked, given the ambiguous loyalties of its eponymous protagonist Hans, is discussed here with particular reference to the attitude of the Berlin censorship authorities. The lively debate on the political content of the play which took place between the Berlin authorities and the upper echelons of the German army is documented, as well as the hitherto unknown concerted effort between the Germans and Austrians to ban the play in Vienna which led to its subsequent banning all over Germany.
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