South Africa commemorates National Book Week every first week of September. It is an initiative of the South African Book Development Council (SABDC) in collaboration with the Department of Arts and Culture.
Reading statistics report that only 14% of the South African population are active book readers, and a mere 5% of parents read to their children. National Book Week is an important initiative in encouraging the nation to value reading as a fun and pleasurable activity and to showcase how reading can easily be incorporated into one’s daily lifestyle.
With this year’s theme of “The Books of Our Lives,” National Book Week embarks on a creative campaign which reveals to South Africans the many ways in which books remain our faithful companions on the road of life, prodding us, guiding us, teasing us, and sweeping us away into history, fantasy and the inner lives of others so different, and yet so similar, to ours.
The commemoration coincides with International Literacy Day on 8 September.
Arts and Culture on National Book Week
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