Sergio Ruzzier

Born and raised in Milan, just a few steps from the little Church of the Lizards, Sergio Ruzzier is a self-taught artist who began publishing his first comic strips in the early 1990s. He later moved to New York, where he established himself as an illustrator, collaborating with numerous publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, and Blab!. Over time, he devoted himself more and more exclusively to creating picture books for both children and adults. In 2011, he was ed by Maurice Sendak for the Sendak Fellowship. Among his works published in Spanish are Dos ratones (A Buen Paso), ¡Qué libro más tonto!, and the Fox and Chick comic series (Liana Editorial).

Ivan Canu

Graduated in Literature History of Theatre in Florence, Italy, Ivan Canu works in Milan as critic, author, project designer and illustrator. From 2009 he’s the director of Mimaster Illustrazione school and one of the curators of The Illustrators Survival Corner for BCBF. His books are published in Italy, France, Japan, China, Korea. He’s an international recognized and awarded illustrator, worldwide represented by Salzman International. He is the author of the podcast The World of Tolkien (Storytel, 2019). He wrote, designed, and illustrated God Save The Queen (Centauria, 2023) and his last book A Brief History of K-pop (Salani, 2024).

Pablo de la Vega

Pablo has over two decades of experience in the publishing industry. He spent eight years in the commercial department of the Guadalajara International Book Fair, where he was responsible for planning and managing programs dedicated to the internationalization of the Spanish-language publishing market. In 2011, he moved to New York City, joining Lectorum Publications, the largest Spanish-language book distributor in the United States, and Indent Literary Agency, where he established their children’s books division.

Currently, he owns his own literary agency, Base Tres, representing Latin American publishers and authors for global markets, and publishers from around the world for Latin American markets. Pablo holds a Law degree and a Master’s in Cultural Management from the University of Rome, and he has been a speaker at numerous conferences worldwide as well as a teacher and workshop leader at national and international institutions, including CERLALC.

Vivian Lavín

(Santiago de Chile, 1967) is a journalist with extensive experience in the cultural field. Since 2001, she has hosted the radio program Vuelan las Plumas on Radio Universidad de Chile. She is the author of three books of interviews with Chilean and Latin American writers and intellectuals, and co-author of the illustrated book on botany Viaje Natural. An Encounter Between Art and Science (VLP Ediciones, 2021). In Spain, she published the essay Pisaremos las calles nuevamente (Cuatro Lunas, 2023), based on the testimonies of three former political prisoners from the Chilean dictatorship.

In 2018, she founded the literary agency VLP Agency, representing authors and publishers from Latin America and Spain, becoming a pioneer in the internationalization of Chilean books in the Asia-Pacific region, with a focus on Korea and China. She is a member of the Observatory of Books and Reading and served as president of the Society of Literary Rights (SADEL) from 2021 to 2025.

She has been recognized by the Society of Chilean Writers, the Chilean Book Chamber, awarded the Journalistic Excellence Prize for Pobre el que no cambia de mirada, and the Alejandro Silva de la Fuente Prize from the Chilean Academy of Language, among other distinctions.

Other activities involving the participant:

Latin America Viva
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