POP UP - CELEBRATE CERVANTES
While ILAB booksellers gather across the world to celebrate UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April 2016 with Pop Up fairs, lectures, exhibitions, and book parties at many busy and unexpected places from Australia to Asia, South Africa, all over Europe and the United States, there will be a REALLY BIG event – the elegant, refined Parisian book fair held in the sophisticated surroundings of the Grand Palais.
WORLD BOOK AND COPYRIGHT DAY AT THE GRAND PALAIS
The International Rare Book & Autograph Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris, now in its 28th year, is one of the most prestigious fairs in the world, attracting nearly 200 exhibitors and over 20.000 visitors who enjoy the opportunity to browse, buy and admire more than 100.000 historical documents, rare books, manuscripts, autographs, prints and ephemera from all centuries. In 2016, this international high-class event becomes even greater as the French antiquarian booksellers will join in ILAB’s celebrations on
UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day by granting free entry to the fair on Saturday, 23 April.
Instead of paying an entry fee visitors will be invited to donate money in support of
UNESCO’s Forest Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative (WPDI) – a literacy project in South Sudan, where ILAB booksellers help UNESCO to set up school libraries and thereby bring books to the people where they are really urgently needed. In South Sudan 70 % of all adults and 84 % of all women are illiterate. By raising money for the people in South Sudan at the Paris Fair as part of ILAB’s worldwide celebrations on 23 April, the French booksellers give an impressive sign of support to ILAB’s and UNESCO’s initiative to raise funds to buy books for South Sudan and to raise the awareness of the importance of literacy for everybody in our modern world.
CERVANTES ON WORLD BOOK AND COPYRIGHT DAY 2016
In 2016, the UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day will be celebrated for the 26th time on 23 April. This is a symbolic date for world literature. On this day in 1616 two of the world’s greatest men of literature died: William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Published in two volumes in 1605 and 1615, Cervantes’ El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha is considered one of the most influential works of literature. In fact, it is regarded as the first European novel, and its author is widely esteemed as the world's pre-eminent novelist. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called “la lengua de Cervantes”. Born in Alcalá de Henares near Madrid, Cervantes enlisted as a soldier in the Spanish Navy and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by pirates. After five years of captivity, he was released on payment of a ransom by his parents, and subsequently returned to Madrid where he worked as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada. Discrepancies in his accounts landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville, until the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quixote signalled his return to the literary world in 1605. During the last nine years of his life, Cervantes wrote, among others, the second part of Don Quixote in 1615. At that time he had already gained world renown. Cervantes had become immortal.
CERVANTES AT THE GRAND PALAIS 2016
Inside the Grand Palais running concurrently with the
International Rare Book & Autograph Fair, the French booksellers will celebrate Cervantes with an impressive exhibition. A selection of some of the rarest and most original documents from the personal collection of René Cluzel, a former member of SLAM, will honour the great Spanish author. The exhibition will include two of the oldest Don Quixote editions from the years 1607 and 1611, the first complete French translation published in 1622, the original Italian edition of the Novelas ejemplares printed in 1626, along with illustrated English 18th century editions, the famous Ibarra edition from the year 1780, the most attractive 19th century illustrated editions by Doré, Johannot, Urrabieta Vierge as well as modern editions by Lemarié, Dubout and Dali. On show will also be unique copies, such as an unknown series of gouaches from the end of the 18th century, the handwritten model illustrated by Louis Icart which had never been published, next to plates from the Second Empire, glass plates painted for a magic lantern, bronze and wooden sculptures, puppets, comics, and many other rare items related to the life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and his story of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a presentation “Cervantes and the Metamorphoses of Don Quixote” on Sunday 24 April at 3 pm by Jean Canavaggio, editor of Cervantes in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade.
CERVANTES, RARE BOOKS AND LITERACY WORLDWIDE
Why such a fervour for Cervantes? At some time in our lives we have all met Don Quixote. We learn about his life and adventures in children’s books or at school, in movies, and most of all in printed books, many of them old and rare and beautifully illustrated, in all languages, in the original text or in contemporary adaptations. There is hardly a literary life without any notion of Don Quixote. That’s why Quixote and his creator Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra belong to the past, present and future of literacy more than any other author. Could there be a better reason to celebrate Cervantes on UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day 2016 as with a worldwide fundraising to support literacy?
Throughout the Parisian Book Fair and in solidarity with their French colleagues, ILAB President Norbert Donhofer, Michael Steinbach, President of the Austrian Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (VAO), and many other ILAB dealers will set up the ILAB/UNESCO Empty Bookshelf Posters in their own stands. From Paris to the world they join their colleagues at the numerous local ILAB Pop Up Fairs by raising funds for the UNESCO projects. Visitors at the
International Rare Book & Autograph Fair in Paris and passers-by at the
ILAB Pop Up Fairs across the world will have a wonderful opportunity to see an abundance of books and a rich diversity of Don Quixote editions.
SEND US PICTURES OF YOUR FAVOURITE CERVANTES BOOKS!
Over the 24 hours of World Book and Copyright Day ILAB will present the pictures of Cervantes editions on the ILAB Pop Up Book Fair Blog. We would love to feature your personal favourite Cervantes books too!
Send us pictures of your favourite Cervantes book and celebrate with us! Email pictures to
editor@ilab.org.
The world of books unites us, on UNESCO’s World Book and Copyright Day 2016, on the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, and on every other day, as long as we read and love books.
Join the ILAB booksellers on Saturday April 23 and celebrate with them UNESCO World Book and Copyright Day 2016: at the International Rare Book & Autograph Fair at the Grand Palais in Paris, and all across the world at the ILAB Pop Up Book Fairs from Sydney to Seoul and Tokyo to Cape Town, Europe and the United States.
March 2016 – For immediate release. Pictures: ILAB, UNESCO, the Organizers
