UNESCO City of Literature Iowa City Celebrates UNESCO World Book & Copyright Day

Iowa City - UNESCO City of Literature

America’s only UNESCO City of Literature, Iowa City has rallied area businesses, public libraries, florists, independent bookstores, artists, poets and scholars to create a community celebration in honor of UNESCO’s World Book & Copyright Day, whose theme this year is, “The Book Tomorrow; the Future of the Written Word.”

Over two days, Iowa City will bring together United States Poet Laureate (1997-2000), translator, essayist and teacher Robert Pinsky,  poet, translator, critic and editor Aliki Barnstone, and a panel of scholars on the topic of emerging issues for copyright and publishing, as well as organizing open-house tours of the University of Iowa’s Center for the Book.

UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova issued a statement to mark the occasion, in which she said, “Books embody the human capacity to conjure up worlds of reality and imagination and to express them. They are the best voices of tolerance. They provide the strongest signs of hope. Books are pillars for free and open societies.  We must protect them. We must make their wealth available to the 800 million adults that still do not have reading skills. We must explore all aspects of the changes they are undergoing today. These are pledges around which we gather on this World Book and Copyright Day.

Iowa City became the third UNESCO City of Literature when it was admitted to UNESCO's Creative Cities Network in November 2008. Since 1955, graduates and faculty of the University of Iowa have won more than 25 Pulitzer Prizes in literature. Iowa City has been home to such acclaimed authors as Flannery O’Connor, Wallace Stegner, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; and the world-famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop was the world’s first Master of Fine Arts degree program in creative writing. Today, the city’s literary culture continues to thrive: there are more patrons of Iowa City’s public library than there are residents of Iowa City itself.