Renate Welsh was born in 1937 in Vienna. She studied English and Spanish Philology and a course about Political Sciences.
She has written numerous books for children and young adults, many of them translated to other languages, including Spanish. She has been repeatedly nominated to the Andersen Award and to the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA). Renate Welsh has also received other important international and national awards, including the Austrian Dignity Award (1985), given to her whole work. She is currently living in Vienna.
She has been nominated to the Andersen Award 2014 and to the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2023
Nickel, an Austrian girl, takes advantage of her high school holidays to visit her English grandmother, who is in a hospital for terminal cancer illnesses. What was supposed to be a short stay turns to be several weeks long, and she exposes herself to multiple and contradictory feelings, caused by her cohabitation with patients, relatives and the staff of the clinic. This will lead her to question many of the principles that used to define her previous life as a teenager.
This vital process of maturity will also give her a self-rewarding basis for facing her close future as an adult woman.
Obtained awards:
- Honor List. Austrian Children and Young Adults’ Books
- Vienna Children and Young Adults’ Books Prize
- Honor List. German Books for Young Adults.
- “Highly recommendable”, according to the Austrian Young Adults’ Literature Committee.
“It serves as a real stimulus for children’s literature… Even today, thanks to its authenticity, it is successful in achieving her author’s goal: to trouble the readers and to make them seek answers to a multitude of current issues” (CLIJ, Children and Young Adults’ Literature Notebooks)
“A well writen book, without a moralizing tone” (Blanca Calvo in La Nueva Alcarria).
“An excellent novel” (Juan Clemente Gómez in Información de Elche).