Pages of Book Week open today

International Book Reading and Copyright Day is being observed around the globe today. A UNESCO initiative, the day is set aside every year to promote reading, publishing and copyright. And with the increasing number of Belizean publications, a week of activities has been organized locally to mark the event. Activities began on Monday and this morning the Belize Book Industry Association was officially launched and in collaboration with the National Institute of Culture and History, a two-day book fair is also being held at the House of Culture. On display are publications from local distributors and publishers on a variety of topics including history, culture, fiction and children. NICH President Diane Haylock, at this morning’s opening, told News Five she hopes Book Week will become an annual event.

Diane Haylock, President, NICH
“By and large, the idea behind having book week is to, first of all, celebrate International Book Reading and Copyright Day, which is actually today but it is also to Launch the Belize Book Industry Association and I think generally it is an initiative to bring awareness to the general public in Belize about what is going on in the publishing industry in Belize and what are some of the challenges that that industry faces and what we can do to help that industry to grow and develop in Belize.”

“The book fair itself is an opportunity to allow book sellers, book producers, book distributors, to put on display the many books that are published and available in Belize to hopefully make some sales from them. And so the fair will be taking place over the next two days, people are invited to come and see what’s on display. They will see a wonderful collection of Belizean books and take advantage of the opportunity to maybe acquire some of these publications.”

An evening of poetry and prose will be held this Friday at the House of Culture to culminate the week long of events.