The Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture, Dr Joe Phaahla will officially launch the second phase of South African Classics, a project funded from the Conditional Grand at the National Library of South Africa's Pretoria campus. The South African book chain industry and the public have been invited to this auspicious occasion to honour and recognise the South African indigenous language classic writers.
In 2008 Department of Arts and Culture entrusted National Library of South Africa with a task to identify and reprint books, which are regarded to be classics in the nine indigenous languages in South Africa. The public nominated thousands of titles which they consider to be classics leaving the panel of experts with an enormous task to screening and select. The panel constituted of literary and publishing experts finalised the list.
In the first phase of the project 27 titles were reprinted, while in the second phase 19 literary titles have been reprinted. These add up to the total of 46 titles reprinted in the nine indigenous languages to this far.
The National Library of South Africa will continue reproducing the texts and ensure that knowledge is not lost from future generations. The reprinted books of the first phase were distributed to all nine provinces, public and school libraries and all centres of information for easy access to the public.
For further information contact:
Siphiwo Mahala
Cell: 082 545 2389
Andrew Malotle
Cell: 072 211 1595
