Georgia joins World Read Aloud Day

For the first time Georgia will join global celebrations tomorrow for World Read Aloud Day, as authors team up with venues to host literary readings celebrating the importance of books.

Tomorrow Georgia and more than a hundred countries will celebrate World Read Aloud Day, which aimed to raise international awareness of the importance of reading aloud and sharing stories.

In capital Tbilisi several events are planned where contemporary Georgian authors will meet book enthusiasts at schools and universities.

Major cities Batumi, Kutaisi and Zugdidi will also host official events at book clubs as well as at private and public offices.

Among the participants of tomorrow’s celebration events are a creative duo, who will present their project Travelling the Books, which stages novel shows for children based on book stories.

Hosted by the Tbilisi Media Centre Union at its Vake Park base in Tbilisi, painter Magda Revishvili and actor Niko Kankia will stage a performance of stories from The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen by German author Rudolf Erich Raspe.

Actor Niko Kankia in a performance for the project Travelling the Books. Photo by N. Alavidze/Agenda.ge. 

The day-long activities will end with a reading by popular contemporary authors including Ekaterine Togonidze, Toresa Mossy and Paata Shamugia at the Writers House of Georgia.

After the writers read excerpts from their works, event hosts will reveal the first winner of the Book Supporter of the Year prize.

Georgia’s first World Read Aloud Day celebration is being organised by the Georgian Publishers and Booksellers Association together with Litworld international organisation.

The global celebration was marked annually on February 26 by more than 30 million people from 100 countries.

Hosted by Litworld, World Read Aloud Day aimed to "call global attention to the importance of reading aloud and sharing stories."