Elena Pasoli

Elena Pasoli is Director of the Culture Business Unit at BolognaFiere and Director of the Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF). She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Italian section of IBBY – the International Board on Books for Young People, and of the Advisory Board of PublisHer – Women in Publishing network.

In recent years, her work has focused on the international development of the Fair, leading it to become co-organizer of the China Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair (CCBF). She also curates the annual Bologna Grand Tour initiative around the world and numerous children’s book and illustration exhibitions in more than 40 countries.

Thanks to this activity, aimed at connecting book industries, cultures, and heritage, Elena received the Eric Carle Honor in 2018 in the Bridge category.

Before her current role, she served as Events Manager at BolognaFiere and headed the Communications Department of the University of Bologna Foundation. She holds a degree in Classical Literature.

Other activities involving the participant:

What if we don’t talk about it? Censorship, silences, and tensions in children’s literature

Carolina Ballester

Carolina Ballester was born in Paris in 1982.
She graduated in Chinese and Arabic from the National Institute of Oriental Languages ​​and Cultures in Paris. In 2005, she moved to Spain and earned a degree in political science from the Complutense University of Madrid and a postgraduate degree in international affairs from the Center for International Studies at the University of Barcelona.
In 2011, Carolina settled in China to assume responsibility for the cultural promotion service at the Consulate of Spain in Shanghai. In 2013, she joined the organizing committee of the Shanghai Children's Book Fair (CCBF), now co-organized with the Bologna Children's Book Fair, where she directed the fair's international programming for a decade. In September 2022, she was appointed executive director of IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People), based in Basel, Switzerland, where she coordinates the activities of the organization's 86 sections.

Marisol Schulz Manaut

Marisol Schulz Manaut is an editor, commentator, speaker, cultural journalist, and expert in the literary and publishing world. She has received multiple recognitions for her work promoting reading and advocating for the future of books and the Spanish language.

For the past twelve years, she has served as the director of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, considered the most important Spanish-language book fair and one of the most significant in the world. Under her leadership, FIL Guadalajara has received several awards, including the prestigious Princess of Asturias Award in the area of Communication and Humanities, shared with the Hay Festival; the Order of Rio Branco from Brazil; and recently, the Sor Juana Medal, a recognition granted by the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana in Mexico.

She also directs the Los Angeles Spanish Language Book Fair and Literary Festival, an ambitious program aimed at promoting books and reading in Spanish in the United States, founded in 2011.

For over four decades, Marisol Schulz has focused on the book and reading sector, leading editorial areas in various public and private organizations, such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS). She was the editorial director at Plaza y Janés Mexico and spent 17 years at Grupo Santillana, first as executive editor and later as director of the Taurus and Alfaguara imprints in Mexico. She was responsible for the edition of major Ibero-American writers such as Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, José Saramago, Arturo Pérez Reverte, Elena Poniatowska, Augusto Monterroso, Sergio Ramírez, Carmen Boullosa, Alberto Ruy Sánchez, and Xavier Velasco, among others.

In 2013, the Mexican edition of Forbes recognized her as one of the 50 most powerful women in Mexico. In 2016 and 2020, the magazine Quién named her one of the "50 people who move Mexico." In 2021, she received the National Juan Pablos Award for Editorial Merit, a recognition granted annually by the Mexican Chamber of the Publishing Industry (Cámara Nacional de la Industria Editorial Mexicana).

Other activities involving the participant:

Indigenous Literature Award 2025
Diana Moreno Toscano Latin American Young Poetry Prize 2025
Acknowledgments and closing
The privilege of turning off the light
The universal humanist
Opening Ceremony
Inter-American Publishers Group Award