María Jesús Gil: President of the Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury 2014

On March 15 and 16, 2014 the Jury meeting for the Hans Christian Andersen Award will take place at the International Youth Library in Munich. We feel honoured to host this important event and look forward to welcoming the jury members.

After training as a teacher and editor, María Jesús worked at Ediciones SM for twenty years, starting as Foreign Rights Manager, and then as the Editorial Manager of the Department of Children and Young Adults for fifteen years. She also worked as the Editorial Manager of Alfaguara Infantil y Juvenil and Altea (Santillana).  After a time as a professional consultant for publishing firms, she joined the Foundation SM and is currently the coordinator of its Reading Programmes for Spain and Latin America. 

María Jesús was an elected member of the IBBY Executive Committee from 1996 until 2000.  Between 2009 and 2011 she served as President of the Spanish Section of IBBY and was the Chair of the 32^nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela in 2010.  She was a member of the Jury for the Hans Christian Andersen Award for the 2008 and 2010 awards. María Jesús was elected President of the 2012 and 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury.

The other Jury Members are: Fanuel Hanan Diaz, Ayfer Gürdal Ünal, Susan Stan, Anastasia Arkhipova, Sabine Fuchs, Erik Titusson, Enrique Pérez Diaz, Sang-Wook Kim, Elda Nogueira, Sahar Tarhandeh, Deborah Soria