Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature

I always “read” and absorbed life through my senses. I think every little thing that exists has its word, a name, a voice.

M. L Devetach.

born in 1936 in Reconquista, Santa Fe, Laura Devetach is a household name in Argentinian children’s literature. Devetach earned a degree in Modern Literature in Córdoba in 1950 and started her career as a teacher in the rural area of north Santa Fe in 1956. Storytelling was her main teaching method to draw the students’ attention from cotton fields and sugarcanes to school and the world of tales. In 1976 and while affected by the tumultuous political climate of the time, Devetach and her husband, the writer Gustavo Roldán, moved to Buenos Aires. Despite the political suppression and censorship of cultural and literary works, Devetach dedicated her time to journalism, writing, creating, and directing the collections with a focus on children’s literature. On the side, she worked as a promoter of reading culture and collaborated with different media on the topic of writing and culture. Through her participation in national and international workshops and through her short stories, poems, essays, and her works for children’s television programs, Devetach has been an indefatigable champion of children’s literature. Although she references Argentina’s recent troubled history as well as the challenges of everyday life, Devetach resists a didacticism. In The Tower of Cubes and The Ant that Sings, to name but a few, her poetic language and metaphoric voice evoke voices, sounds, music, and create images in the reader’s mind while it challenges the social and cultural conflicts of the time. Devetach has earned numerous national and international awards and literary distinctions since the beginning her career. In 2008, she received a Doctor Honoris Causa from the UNC in Córdoba and in 2010 she won the Premio Iberoamericano SM de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil.