Every year on April 23, World Book Day is celebrated to encourage reading, publishing, and copyright. April 23 is an important day for literature as it marks the birth and death of several prominent authors. William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, and Josep Pla died on April 23 and Manuel Mejia Vallejo and Maurice Druon were born on April 23.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) organises World Book Day. On this day, UNESCO and the international organizations representing the three major sectors of the book industry – publishers, booksellers and libraries, select the World Book Capital for a year. The World Book Capital for 2021 will be Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia.
UNESCO decided to organise a day dedicated to reading and books in the 1995 General Conference held in Paris, ‘to discover the pleasure of reading and gain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable contributions of those, who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity.’
As a part of the World Book Day 2021 programme, UNESCO has organised a #bookface challenge.
“The book covers are incredibly important and play a vital role in our buying decisions. We’re all extremely judgemental about covers. The pandemic has also reminded us all of the importance of books and reading for comfort and escapism, we’ve all needed it this past year…in such circumstances, we invite students, teachers, readers from around the world as well as the book industry and library services to testify and express their love for reading by participating to this challenge,” an official statement said.
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