Mohsen Haji Zeinolabedini | The 5th festival of villages and nomads Book lovers was held attending by Es’hagh Jahangiri, Iran’s First Vice President and Abbas Salehi, the Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance was held on Feb. 23, 2019. In this ceremony ten villages were introduced as book-reader and ten other villages were introduced and praised as book lovers. Also, the award for continuance of book-reading activities was awarded to Bezanj Village, North Khorasan Village.
The award for continuance of bookreading is awarded to a village which had been selected by the same festival already and has offered new plans and has never stopped its activities. The festival of villages and nomads Book lovers is a program which is run every year with the cooperation of a collection of governmental and non-governmental organization. Every year, ten village or nomad villages are introduced as villages and nomads who love book reading. To participate in this festival, villages need to introduce their special cultural and social features and also to present their activities, initiatives and executive plans in order to strengthen infrastructures of book-reading and promotion of book-reading culture in the village. “Iran Book Capital” is an initiative in Iran according to which every year a city is chosen as the book capital of the country. The fifth round of this initiative was held on Feb. 23, 2019. In this ceremony, because of its continued book promotion activities and proposing new and creative plans in this regard, Yazd was selected as the fifth book capital of Iran. The former book capital cities of Iran were Ahwaz (2015), Neyshabur(2016), Bushehr (2017) and Kashan (2018). The project of choosing.
Iran’s book capital city is the first national experience in this field and this practice will help us to approach the global standards of to be chosen as the world’s book capital. The Iranian cultural authorities say that their standards are nationally and based on the local structures and capacities.
