The Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, named Tbilisi (Georgia) World Book Capital for the year 2021, based on the recommendation of the World Book Capital Advisory Committee, reported georgiatoday. The Advisory Committee for nominating the World Book Capital city was comprised of representatives of the International Publisher's Association (IPA), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) and UNESCO.
Around the slogan Ok. So your Next Book Is…? the program focuses on the use of modern technologies as powerful tools for promoting reading among youth. The program will be comprised of several important, large-scale and sustainable activities. Amongst the events and activities there will be libraries and a book festival for children, a state-of-the-art digital project for transforming books into games, and the rebuilding of the first Georgian publishing house. The event will be marked on 23 April 2021, on the World Book and Copyright Day.
Prior to Tbilisi, the cities of Madrid (2001), Alexandria (2002), New Delhi (2003), Anvers (2004), Montreal (2005), Turin (2006), Bogota (2007), Amsterdam (2008), Beirut (2009), Ljubljana (2010), Buenos Aires (2011), Erevan (2012), Bangkok (2013), Port Harcourt (2014), Incheon (2015), Wroclaw (2016), Conakry (2017) and Athens (2018), Sharjah (2019), and Kuala Lumpur (2020) had been named as world book capitals.
UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It seeks to build peace through international cooperation in Education, Sciences and Culture. UNESCO's programmes contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals defined in Agenda 2030. The 23 April is a symbolic date in world literature. It is the date on which several prominent authors, William Shakespeare, Miguel Cervantes and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. By championing books and copyright, UNESCO stands up for creativity, diversity and equal access to knowledge, with the work across the board – from the Creative Cities of Literature network to promoting literacy and mobile learning and advancing Open Access to scientific knowledge and educational resources.
