Spain Invites Readers To Share Photographs Of Usual Reading Spot On Social Media At #RincónDeLectura And #DíaDelLibro

The Spanish government is encouraging readers to share photographs of their usual reading spot on social media, using the hashtag #RincónDeLectura [Reading corner] and the generic hashtag #DíaDelLibro [Book Day].

The initiative is part of this week marking the celebration of World Book and Copyright Day, on April 23. Spain’s Ministry of Culture and Sport, despite the complex and limiting circumstances, said it wishes to reaffirm its commitment to fostering reading, the protection of intellectual property and copyright, and the defence of the publishing industry.

Given the impossibility of holding the traditional award ceremony for the Miguel de Cervantes Prize for Literature in the Spanish Language, the Ministry of Culture and Sport, through the Directorate-General for Books and Reading, has set up various initiatives to pay tribute to the 2019 Cervantes Prize-winner, Joan Margarit, including a video tribute, which will be posted on social media on April 23, in which leading figures from different fields (friends, publishers, authors, book-sellers and university lecturers) who would have been invited to the award ceremony will send brief videos in which they outline their relationship with Joan Margarit and his works.

There will be different posts during the day on social media with his poems, audios, press articles and different facets of his career (his ties to music, his activity as an architect) and, as each year, a microsite on the ministerial department’s web page will provide all the information on the history of the prize, the figure of the prize-winner and the activities that will be carried out by other units of the department and institutions related to the award, such as the Cervantes Institute, the Círculo de Bellas Artes, etc.

The traditional Cervantes Prize award ceremony will be postponed sine die, until such time as the circumstances permit.

This prize is the maximum recognition of the creative work of Spanish and Hispano-American writers whose works have contributed to notably enrich literary heritage in the Spanish language. The list of prize-winners since it was first awarded in 1976 is clear evidence of the importance of the prize for culture in the Spanish language, according to the Ministry of Culture and Sport.

In addition, April 22 will see the launch of a Twitter thread, a Facebook post, and an Instagram post entitled ‘Publication of the month’, linked in to the web page of the ministerial department where the publication is hosted. The book selected for April is ‘Flora o La educación de una niña’, by Pilar Pascual de Sanjua (1881), from the Virtual Library of Bibliographic Heritage.

Furthermore, the productive process of the poster to commemorate World Book Day 2020 in Spain, designed by the National Drawing Prize-winner, Paco Giménez, will be explained in a video.

Lastly, the importance of the digital eBiblio library service in this lockdown will be underlined through various channels.