The 27th Iran Book Week opened on Wednesday in Yazd, the central Iranian city that is Iran’s 2019 Book Capital.
The ceremony opened with the message of the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Abbas Salehi warning against a growing crisis in book reading in the country.
“We are now living at a time during which the revolution of cyberspace dominates all historical and cultural periods of life, and we are encountering the risk of facing inaccurate knowledge growing rapidly in such a way that we may face a crisis in book reading in the future,” read part of the message.
“Therefore, a national book reading campaign could help immunize us against the upcoming threats but only on the condition that everybody participates in this national campaign,” the message added.
“Libraries and local bookstores can help make a thoughtful culture-based city,” it also added.
A number of book fairs are set up at schools in Yazd during the week, while bookmobiles will move out across the city of Yazd, which is home to many magnificent historical mosques and ancient Zoroastrian fire temples.
In addition, book fairs, reading workshops and meetings with writers and translators are being organized across the country during the book week.
The Iran Book Week will also be observed in the country’s cultural offices in Italy, Belarus, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uganda.
Ahmad Dehqan, the Iranian author of “Bearing 270 Degrees”, a novel about the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, and M. Marelli, the translator of the Italian version of the book, will attend the book week in Italy.
An Urdu version of Iranian children’s book writer Mehdi Azar Yazdi’s popular series “Good Stories for Good Children”, translated by Abdulqayyum Bidar, will be unveiled during the book week in Pakistan.
The 27th Iran Book Week is being held with the motto of “The Good Mood of Reading”.
Tehran times