The book and the movie

After the big success of Igor Kolarov's novel Agi and Emma (2002), it was adapted for the big screen (2007) by director Milutin Petrovic. The novel tells the story about the strange, yet beautiful friendship between Agi and Emma. Agi is a 9-year-old boy, who lives in a modern family, with parents who are always busy and who move around very often. His life changes when he meets Emma, an elderly but very lively women. Ema is his only friend. Together, they create their own world, a world of friendship, imagination and creativity, full of all kinds of interesting mischief.

While teh movie was still in the making, the Serbian Company Limited from Toronto published the English translation (2006) by Irina Sutulov, with a foreword by Milutin Petrovic.

After reading the book, you can also enjoy the movie on a DVD with English subtitles

Petrlik Huseinović in Japan

         

Although my goal here is to collect English translations of Western Balkan literature for children, my recent trip to Japan inspired me to write this short post. While in Tokyo I visited the Chichiro Art Museum, dedicated to Chichiro Iwasaki, Japanese illustrator and author for children. The Museum also contains a collection of world renown illustrators for children. Among them are the works of the Croatian illustrator Andrea Petrlik Huseinović. She was awarded the Grand Prix OBI in 2004 at the Oita Biennial of Illustrations for her picture book Ciconia Ciconia, which was published in Japanese translation by Yoshie Okada in 2009.