Last April 23 was International Book Day. A week prior to the event, I have found an article regarding this year's celebration of Dia del Libro. It is an event spearheaded by Instituto Cervantes and given that it was a weekend, I am free to travel somewhere and attend to this event -- no questions asked. :-)
So what really is Dia del Libro? As explained on the website of Spot.ph:
The tradition of Dia del Libro began in Barcelona, Spain as part of St. George's Day on April 23. It is also the day the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes and English poet William Shakespeare died-- April 23, 1616. With such significant coincidence, UNESCO declared April 23 as "World Book and Copyright Day" in 1995.
The event was held at Ayala Triangle Gardens in Makati. Aside from participating publishing companies where you can buy books and be entitled to a 20% discount, ambassadors from countries like Spain and Venezuela were also present to grace the event. This year's Dia del Libro also featured paintings from a pop up museum of Museo del Prado.
One of the highlights of the event was this invitation to people in the venue to join in re-writing the book Don Quijote -- by hand. Next to the experience of joining a foreign celebration, this writing challenge was actually the main reason I decided to attend this year's Dia del Libro.
The activity proved to be a challenge -- but an exciting one at that. Each participant is being told "dos minutos para escribir" which means that each of us are given just two minutes to write a part of the book. And if you think that's already challenging, the real catch is once I was seated facing the book -- the manuscript is purely in Spanish!
Similar to once you purchase a book in the event, after a participant finishes the two-minute deadline, he/she is given a red rose as their way of saying thank you and because it's part of the Spanish tradition in commemorating the event. There were other events that day including a cultural show but I had to beg off because next to the scorching summer heat, I still had some commitments to attend to. But if you were to ask me how I found the event given that this is only the first time I attended, I'd say it was fun to have experienced something new and maybe, I'll be going again next year.
