Escobar de Nogales, Melba (Text) / Elizabeth Builes (Illustration)
Das Glück ist ein Fisch
A novel from Columbia
Translated from Spanish by Jochen Weber
© 2018 Baobab Books
112 pages, hardcover, 14,8 x 20,5 cm
CHF 25.00 / € [D] 16,50 / € [A] 17,00
ISBN 978-3-905804-83-6
Ages 9 and up
There's nothing Pedro would like more than to see the ocean. Living in Bogotá, he's really surprised when his mother gives him a trip to an island for his tenth birthday. I bet there are pirates there! They say that water has seven colours. But then the holiday turns out completely different from what he had expected.
When Pedro finds out why his Dad didn't come along he runs away, blinded by anger and disappointment. He runs and runs until he finds himself lost in the darkness of the night. Scared and hungry, he meets an old sailor who lives in a hut on the beach and takes the boy in. Interestingly enough, the old man has the same name as an English buccaneer who landed on the Caribbean island many hundreds of years ago … At least that's what a chatty parrot, who says she is no less than 300 years old, tells him.
In this finely illustrated adventure with Pedro we experience happiness and pain in equal measure. You have to get lost first to be able to find yourself.
The Author
Melba Escobar de Nogales was born in Cali, Colombia, in 1976. She studied literature at the Universidad de los Andes in the country's capital Bogotá and published her first book in 2007. Das Glück ist ein Fisch is her first children's book – the only one so far; its original Spanish title is Johnny y el mar.
Melba Escobar is a journalist too. She has written essays on diving expeditions off the coast of Colombia, amongst other things. She is also a columnist for the Colombian daily newspapers El País and El Espectador. She lives and works in Bogotá and has two children, Matilde and Rodrigo.
The Illustrator
Elizabeth Builes was born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1987. She studied visual arts at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and then worked as a scientific illustrator in the Universidad de Antioquia's herbarium, before turning to illustrating books. In 2013 she won the publisher Tragaluz's illustration prize. Since then she has illustrated various books for children and youths. Elizabeth Builes lives in Medellín.
Original edition: »Johnny y el mar«, Tragaluz editores, Medellín
© 2014 Melba Escobar de Nogales
