As Colombia\u2019s second-largest city, Medell\u00edn is home to over 110 bookstores and 25 libraries, many of which were transformed from former prisons and police facilities. Once affected by prolonged periods of conflict, the city is now internationally known for urban and cultural innovation, where books and libraries serve as essential sanctuaries and spaces for resistance. Today, Medell\u00edn embodies the power of culture in peace and reconciliation.<\/p>\n
UNESCO and the World Book Capital Advisory Committee have recognized Medell\u00edn for its strong commitment to cultural mobilization and demonstrated capacity to host major cultural initiatives. UNESCO\u2019s World Book Capitals are committed to promoting books and reading for all, and to advancing the values of dialogue, creativity, education and cultural diversity, with particular attention to young people and vulnerable communities. It also reaffirms the vital role of books as catalysts for more inclusive, equitable and peaceful societies.<\/p>\n
The initiative is part of UNESCO\u2019s broader efforts to strengthen reading ecosystems and literacy worldwide. For example, the \u2018Centroam\u00e9rica Lectora\u2019 project, funded by AECID from 2020-2023, helped expand access to books and reading in El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, as well as strengthening their publishing ecosystems. In Ethiopia, another project funded through the IFCD is currently focusing on enhancing the growth of children\u2019s and youth\u2019s literature.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the twenty-seventh city to bear the title since 2001, Medell\u00edn will host a series of activities to strengthen the city\u2019s public policy on reading, writing and storytelling. The year of celebrations will start on 23 April 2027, World Book and Copyright Day.<\/p>\n
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About the world book capitals<\/p>\n
Cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital undertake to promote books and reading for all ages and groups, within and across national borders, and to organize a programme of activities for the year.<\/p>\n
As the twenty-seventh city to bear the title since 2001, Medell\u00edn follows Madrid (2001), Alexandria (2002), New Delhi (2003), Antwerp (2004), Montreal (2005), Turin (2006), Bogota (2007), Amsterdam (2008), Beirut (2009), Ljubljana (2010), Buenos Aires (2011), Erevan (2012), Bangkok (2013), Port Harcourt (2014), Incheon (2015), Wroclaw (2016), Conakry (2017), Athens (2018), Sharjah, (2019), Kuala Lumpur (2020), Tbilisi (2021), Guadalajara (2022), Accra (2023), Strasbourg (2024), Rio de Janeiro (2025) and Rabat (2026).<\/p>\n
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About the World Book Capital Advisory Committee<\/p>\n
The UNESCO World Book Capital Advisory Committee comprises representatives of the European and International Booksellers Federation (EIBF), the International Authors Forum (IAF), the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), the International Publishers Association (IPA) and UNESCO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Colombia\u2019s second-largest city, Medell\u00edn is home to over 110 bookstores and 25 libraries, many of which were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6033,95301,128,130,129,95300],"class_list":["post-218139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-culture","tag-director-general","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-world-book-capital-cities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}