‘The World Book Day’ is celebrated on 23rd April of every year. The day is also known as ‘World Book and Copyright Day’, or ‘The International Day of the Book’.
The day was organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The main purpose of UNESCO to organize the day is to promote reading, publishing, and copyright. The first World Book Day was celebrated on April 23, 1995, after that, it continues every year. Under this day, various events were organized by the UNESCO, in order to inculcate reading habits among people and especially to the young generation. UNESCO also make people aware of various problems related to authors, publishers, and other parties related to publishing.
April 23, is celebrated as the World Book Day because it was the death anniversary of William Shakespeare, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, and many more famous personalities birth and death anniversary as well on the same day.
The United Kingdom and Ireland, celebrate this day on the first Thursday of March month, not on April 23. As the day is already celebrated as the St. George’s Day, therefore, to avoid the clash on the same day, the World Book Day date has been moved in UK and Ireland as well.
The year 2019, comes with the 24th edition of World Book Day, which celebrates the day while focusing over the importance of enhancing and promoting Indigenous languages. The theme for the event of World Book Day of the year 2019, was ‘International Year of the Indigenous Languages’. The idea of celebrating the day was taken from the Spanish Tradition. Initially, the Day was celebrated as Rose Day in Spain. People use to exchange Rose on this day, but in 1926, after the death of Miguel de Cervantes. The change arises, on that that people exchanged books with their loved ones instead of roses. In this way, the tradition of book exchange continues on this day in Spain and this became the influential idea to celebrate the day as ‘World Book Day’.
