O livro-álbum de autoria feminina em Portugal: do pioneirismo de Manuela Bacelar à inovação de Catarina Sobral.

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to reflect on some of the current trends in the creation of picturebooks by women in Portugal, highlighting, on the one hand, the pioneering work of Manuela Bacelar, an unavoidable artist in the shaping of this genre in Portuguese children's publishing - mainly in terms of her work as a single author - and, on the other, the contribution of a new generation of women writers and/or illustrators who, more recently, have taken risks in their conception, with emphasis on the artistic work of Catarina Sobral. Without forgetting some of the most important names of recent times, whose production in the last decades of the 20th century had a notable impact on the renewal of national Children's Literature and the picturebook in particular, we describe some of the dominant trends in the works of these two creators, linked either to the thematisation of the female status of the illustrator (in the case of the former), or the definition of a markedly personal style, revealing an innovative poetics (in the case of the latter). We emphasise the importance of two model and cohesive creations, closely articulated with the post-modern developments of the picturebook, functioning as unique examples of originality, experimentalism and quality of two distinct but, at the same time, very close generations.