Redaccion
- The presentation event took place in Plaza de las Mujeres, where Itziar Urtasun, Councilor of Equality and Festivities and Deputy to Culture of the City Council of Bilbao, participated.
- The City Council supports literary creation and bookstores through activities such as the Municipal Library Network, competitions, publications, literary festivals, and Bilbao Edita, an initiative to promote local editorial production.
Bilbao joins the celebration of International Book Day, which this year moves the book stalls to Plaza de las Mujeres. This morning, the official presentation took place with the participation of Itziar Urtasun, the Councilor of Equality and Festivities and Deputy to Culture of the City Council of Bilbao.
Also, at the event, Asier Muniategi, responsible for fairs at the Euskadi Book Chamber; Javier Cámara, president of the Bookstore Association of Bizkaia, and young authors Garazi Albizua and Itxaso Martin Zapirain, along with other institutional and societal representatives of Bilbao, were present.
During her speech, Itziar Urtasun wanted to emphasize that “books have the power to transform our lives, enrich our thinking, and better understand the world around us”. Therefore, it is essential to reaffirm the enduring value of the book “in a world rapidly advancing towards digitalization, where information flows in multiple formats and platforms”. In the councilor’s words, “a book is not just a collection of pages: it is a space for reflection, an intimate refuge, a tool for knowledge, and a seed of freedom”.
Itziar Urtasun concluded her speech by paying a sincere tribute to those who “write, edit, distribute, and promote reading. To those who, through literary creation, teaching, or libraries, open paths to knowledge and the profound pleasure of reading”.
The inaugural event concluded with a visit to the book stalls, where attendees could purchase the latest literary releases as well as classic books.
For the past 26 years, at the initiative of UNESCO, International Book Day has been celebrated on April 23, coinciding with the commemoration of the deaths in 1616 of three great classic authors of universal literature: Miguel de Cervantes, William Shakespeare, and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.
The City Council of Bilbao continues to support literary creation and bookstores, as outlined in one of the strategic lines of the Strategic Plan for Culture of Bilbao 2023-2033, through activities such as the Municipal Library Network of Bilbao, the literary competitions it regularly organizes, the publications of the winning works of those competitions, a comprehensive program accompanied by literary festivals, and support for publishing through BILBAO EDITA, an initiative to promote local editorial production.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
www.bilbaokultura.eus
