ILAB Pop-Up Book Fairs on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day, April 23
What do a film star, the children in South Sudan, and 1,800 booksellers on 5 continents have in common? They are some of the essential components of a worldwide series of events to create a more literate world. On 23 April 2016 the members of the International League of Antiquarian Bookseller’s (ILAB) will celebrate UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day with a series of spectacular and extraordinary bookish events - for 24 hours, one after another around the world.
Last year and for the very first time, ILAB booksellers decided to think global and act local on 23 April 2015 by holding ILAB Pop Up Fairs - book presentations, lectures, exhibitions, performances, appraisals - within their local communities and coordinating their efforts under ILAB’s roof. The worldwide celebrations held at most busy and sometimes really unexpected places like Giant Ferris wheels, cabarets and clubs made a global impact. The ILAB booksellers raised well over 10,000 Euros, which bought 1,930 books and 500 pens and paper for the South Sudanese children - delivered by UNESCO's Forest Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative.
In 2016 the ILAB booksellers will do this again… and they will do even more!
From Australia to Japan and, for the first time ever, to the Republic of Korea, further on to Cape Town in South Africa, Moscow and all over Europe to New York, Chicago and the Pacific North West Coast the ILAB booksellers bring rare books to the people and raise funds for UNESCO’s and American actor Forest Whitaker’s literacy projects in South Sudan.
For more information visit the websites www.ilab.org, www.unesco.org/new/en/wbcd and http://wpdi.org/our-work/programs/youth-peacemaker-network-south-sudan. Please contact Sally Burdon (Sally@AsiaBookroom.com) or Barbara van Benthem (editor@ilab.org), if you need any further information.
