At Libros de las Malas Compañías today, 20 June, we want to commemorate World Refugee Day and pay tribute to the people who have had to flee their countries in search of a safe place, a place to call home.
Today we want to highlight the reality of many people who have had to escape conflict or persecution to reach another country in search of a better future. In addition to highlighting and commemorating the strength and struggle of these people, World Refugee Day serves to remind us all of the rights that refugees have. According to UNHCR, refugees should have the same rights as any other citizen, such as the right not to live irregularly in the host country, to gainful employment, to decent housing, and to free public health and education, among others.
We are very aware of refugees and we want them to have a presence and a voice in our books. That is why we have published Brothers in Syria: an album book that shows that war is not what we play with in video games, but that it causes death and destruction, sometimes of people close to us.
We have also published a book that brings together the voices of the Sahrawi women, who are still waiting in the refugee camps in Tindouf for the UN agreements declaring the occupation of their land illegal, Los cuentos del erizo y otros cuentos de las mujeres del Sáhara (The Tales of the Hedgehog and Other Tales of the Sahrawi women). Our latest book also has to do with refugees. We have published (with the help of CEAR, the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid) El viaje de Prince, a first-person story whose protagonist is Agustin Prince, who narrates the difficult situations he has had to face in his flight from Cameroon to Madrid.
And in the coming quarter, you will be able to find in your local bookshop our new book that brings together the voices of refugees: The Pea Giant and Other Tales from Ukraine, folktales of the Ukrainian people, retold by Valeria Kiselova and illustrated by Yana Barabash.
Let's hope that World Refugee Day is not just on 20 June and that we look at them every day of the year.
