The Swedish Academy for Children's Books granted Romanian translator Arina Stoenescu the 2020 Eldsjälspriset award for her "tireless work across linguistic and cultural borders and special ability to make ideas a reality," the Romanian Cultural Institute (ICR) in Stockholm announced.

Arina Stoenescu is a publisher, translator, and graphic designer. Her work is in visual communication and child culture.

She was born in Bucharest in 1969 and has been living in Sweden since 1987. She is undertaking a doctorate in book history at Lund University, researching the link between typography and politics in Romania during the communist period. 

She is also the founder of publishing house Pionier Press, which focuses on bilingual titles for children and youth. Among the title published by Pionier Press are Lacrima/Tåren, a Romanian-Swedish edition, East of East/ Dongjjokeseo Dongjjokeuro, a Korean-Romanian edition, or Kärlek, with English- Romanian and English-Swedish editions. She founded in Bucharest the project of a Roma Library for Children, with a unique collection of children's books in Roma.

This summer, she collaborated with ICR Stockholm on the project "We read together (with Harap Alb) - Digital children's book readings and conversations about child literature." The project presented a series of digital children's books, online, in Romanian, Swedish, English, and Romanian-kelderash.

(Photo: Pionier Press Facebook Page)

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