Nadia Ghazanfari Moghaddam; Mohammad Reza Hashemi; Mahmood Reza Ghorban Sabbagh
Abstract
In any society, patronage always attempts to control and direct materials produced for the young population, and Iran is no exception. Thanks to the large flow of translated children’s literature published in Iran during the 1960s and 1970s, several literary institutions were established to manage ...
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In any society, patronage always attempts to control and direct materials produced for the young population, and Iran is no exception. Thanks to the large flow of translated children’s literature published in Iran during the 1960s and 1970s, several literary institutions were established to manage the flow. They introduced various measures and their policy on award offerings appears to be the most effective one, yet, it has not been fully studied and researched. The aim of this study was to investigate how these institutions’ policy on award offerings had affected translated and domestic children’s books during the early years of their establishment. Accordingly, all award-winning translated and domestic children’s books during the period of 1340/1961 to 1357/1978 were collected from two comprehensive resources, and they were analyzed in SPSS. The quantitative analysis offered insights into major institutions, award winners and qualified publishers. Drawing on discourse analysis, the authors extracted the main themes revolving around award winners and they were compared and contrasted to find any possible harmony. Overall, the results revealed that the institutions preferred to choose children’s books, which were written by Iranian authors, and translated books were not their priority. Additionally, fictions were favored over nonfictions. Their award-offering policy was also ideologically oriented since awarded books contained common themes.
