Our featured author of the month is an Ecuadorian who has won multiple national and international awards. She is considered the most important figure in children and young adult’s literature of her country and, with thirty-eight books published, some of them in Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Spain, this author has attained significant international recognition.
She is a 2014 International Latino Book Awards Finalist. Iturralde’s literature develops within a multicultural, ethnic, and social context. Every story, legend, biography or mith that Iturralde writes about is based on historical research. Iturralde removes the veils from the identity that is unknown or forgotten indigenas ethnic latico culture and projects it to the rest of the world. She has won various prizes and nominations within and outside her country. Among the most important of these are the Ecuador National Prize for Children’s Literature Dario Guevara Mavorga in Ecuador in 2001, the Skipping Stones Award in the United States in 2002 and 2005, and the Mention of Honor of the Municipality of Quito in 2003 and 2004. Her work was selected by the SEP within the competition of the Mexican Ministry of Education in 2003 and 2005. In 2005, two of her books were nominated for the Ecuadorian Honor List of IBBY (International Board of Books for the Young).
She is the president of the Ecuadorian Academy of Children and Juvenile Literature, which is associated with the Latin American Academy of Children and Juvenile Literature.
