The world’s largest award (EUR 570 000) for children and young adult literature to be announced on March 27

The countdown has started. Following the jury’s final meeting on March 27, the laureate or laureates of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) 2018 will be announced. This is the world's largest and most prestigious award for children's and young adult literature. The announcement takes place simultaneously in Stockholm and Bologna and is also broadcast live.

The prize, which amounts to EUR 570 000, is awarded annually to a single recipient or to several. It rewards works or activities of the highest quality but the laureates must also embrace the humanistic values that the Swedish author Astrid Lindgren treasured. So far, seventeen laureates have been awarded, including Philip Pullman (2005), Kitty Crowther (2010), Shaun Tan (2011) and Barbro Lindgren (2014). Last year’s laureate is the German illustrator Wolf Erlbruch.

This year, 235 candidates from 60 countries are in the running for the world’s largest and most prestigious children’s literature award. The complete list of nominated writers, illustrators, reading promoters and storytellers is available here.

The announcement of the 2018 laureate takes place on Tuesday March 27 1:00 pm CEST at Filmhuset (The Film House) in Stockholm. Jury Chairman Boel Westin will announce the laureate or the laureates and Alice Bah Kuhnke, Minister for Culture and Democracy in Sweden is giving a speech. The announcement will be followed by a presentation of the laureate by the jury.

Follow the announcement live on alma.se/en and in Bologna Children's Book Fair, the leading international book fair for children and young people.