World Book and Copyright Day 2022; April 23rd.

FORUM: Storytelling is an incredibly effective tool when it comes to educating younger generations. Indeed, books are vital vehicles to access, transmit and promote education, science, culture, and information worldwide.

EVENTS: On World Book and Copyright Day, UNESCO calls on its partners to share the message that books are a force to address contemporary challenges, to understand political and economic realities, and to combat inequalities and misinformation.

Guadalajara is UNESCO World Book Capital 2022, together let's join the official ceremony.

Guadalajara (Mexico) was named World Book Capital for the year 2022 by the Director-General of UNESCO, Audrey Azoulay, on the recommendation of the World Book Capital Advisory Committee.

The city, already a UNESCO Creative City since 2017, was selected for its comprehensive plan for policies around the book to trigger social change, combat violence and build a culture of peace.

Guadalajara’s proposed programme focuses on three strategic axes: 

1. regaining public spaces through reading activities in parks and other accessible places; 
2. social bonding and cohesion especially though reading and writing workshops for children;
3.  strengthening of neighbourhood identity using intergenerational connections, story-telling and street poetry.

As a UNESCO Creative City of Media Arts Guadalajara has supported its local talents and advancing creative industries through initiatives that places media arts at the core of their programmes including in its world-famous International Book Fair. The city will further make use of its cultural assets such as libraries, reading rooms, bookstores, independent publishing houses, to improve violence-prevention policies. These resources will be leveraged to advance human rights, gender equality and the culture of peace among members of the public and harness the great potential of books to contribute to social transformation.

ACTIVITIES

Activities will include literary events in collaboration with Latin-American writers, an artistic project on the Tower of Babel, events linking theatre and music to literature and the use of local radio for poetry readings.

The year of celebrations will start on 23 April, 2022, on World Book and Copyright Day.

Cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital undertake to promote books and reading and to organize activities over the year. As the twenty-second city to bear the title since 2001, Guadalajara follows Tbilisi (2021) Kuala Lumpur (2020). Past winners include 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), Athens (2018), Sharjah, (2019).

The application of the city of Guadalajara was accepted by an Advisory Committee, comprising representatives of the International Publisher's Association (IPA), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), the International Authors Forum (IAF) and UNESCO.