Literature for children and young adults
Margaret Mahy, ONZ (1936 2012), wrote more than 100 picture books, 40 novels and 20 collections of short stories, and in 2018 is one of thirty-three writers to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal ; the announcement of the win said "the jury has recognized one of the world's most original re-inventors of language. Mahy's language is rich in poetic imagery, magic, and supernatural elements. Her oeuvre provides a vast, numinous, but intensely personal metaphorical arena for the expression and experience of childhood and adolescence". Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.
