Justification for Award Presentation
Professor Emer O’Sullivan of Leuphana University, Lüneburg,
Germany, has been awarded the 20th International Brothers Grimm
Award for Research into Children's Literature in recognition of her
pioneering contributions to the field of international children’s
literature studies.
Her award-winning work has advanced the study of children’s literature
by incorporating theories and perspectives from Comparative
Literature, Translation Studies, and Imagology—fields that had traditionally overlooked literature for
young readers. Her innovative scholarship, published in both English and German, demonstrates how
the study of children’s books can enrich and expand theoretical and methodological approaches across
multiple fields.
Her landmark book, Kinderliterarische Komparatistik (Universitätsverlag C. Winter 2000), redefines
key concepts in Comparative Literature through the lens of children's literature and expands Children’s
Literature Studies to include previously underexplored comparative dimensions. The book received
the biennial IRSCL Award for outstanding research in 2001, and its English edition, Comparative
Children's Literature (Routledge 2005), garnered the Children's Literature Association 2007 Book
Award. The work’s international relevance is reflected in its translation into Greek, Arabic, Chinese,
and Turkish.
She introduced Imagology—the study of cultural constructs and literary ethnotypes—into children’s
literature with her seminal works Das ästhetische Potential nationaler Stereotypen in literarischen
Texten in 1989, Friend and Foe. The image of Germany and the Germans in British children's fiction
from 1870
to the present in 1990 and Imagining Sameness and Difference in Children’s Literature (co-edited with
Andrea Immel) in 2017. Addressing both textual and visual storytelling, her work examines the cultural,
political, and representational functions of images within the discursive framework of internationalism
in children’s literature.
Prof. O’Sullivan has addressed major conferences and universities around the world in keynotes and
invited guest lectures. Her publications have been widely translated and reprinted in multiple languages
including French, Dutch, Portuguese, Turkish, Hungarian, Slovenian, Danish, and Chinese.
Beyond her research, she has contributed to the field through editorial and leadership roles, notably as
co-editor of the Yearbook of the German Society for Children's Literature Research from 2017-2024
and Vice President of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature (IRSCL) from 2003
to 2005.
In addition to her academic achievements, she is also the co-author, with Dietmar Rösler of eight
intralingual German-English children’s books.
For her exceptional contributions to research and the advancement of children’s literature as a critical
discipline, Professor Emer O’Sullivan is a most deserving recipient of the 20th International Brothers
Grimm Award.