The main event of the ‘Semana Cervantina’, which runs from 15 to 26 April, will be the award ceremony for Luis Mateo Díez in Alcalá de Henares. Public Libraries are also celebrating the event with actions to “encourage a lively and continuous dialogue between books and those who love them”.

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Book Day 2024

The Ministry of Culture, through the Directorate General for Books, Comics and Reading, has prepared a wide range of literary activities to celebrate Book and Copyright Day, which will take place from 15 to 26 April, during the so-called ‘Cervantine Week’.

The programme of events will feature the poster designed by Luci Gutiérrez, winner of the National Illustration Prize 2023. The work was inspired by a phrase by Luis Mateo Díez, current winner of the ‘Miguel de Cervantes’ Prize for Literature in the Spanish Language, awarded annually by the Ministry of Culture, Luis Mateo Díez: “I live by telling and I tell by living, fiction is an essential part of existence”.

Following the erection of banners on the façade of the Ministry of Culture on Monday 15 April, the programme of events will kick off that same evening with an event organised by the Directorate General at the Ateneo de Madrid. This will be an evening of tribute to the latest Cervantes laureate, who will talk with Antonio Monegal, winner of the National Essay Prize 2023, and Aurora Luque, winner of the National Poetry Prize 2022, on the theme ‘Rethinking the world’. The evening is organised in collaboration with the Trobades & Premis Mediterranis Albert Camus. The event will be broadcast live.

Presentation of the Cervantes Prize
The main event of the ‘Semana Cervantina’ will be the award ceremony of the Cervantes Prize 2023 to the writer from León. The event will take place on Tuesday 23 April in the Auditorium of the University of Alcalá and will be presided over by the King and Queen of Spain, with the participation of the Minister of Culture. That afternoon, the award-winner himself will begin the 28th Continuous Reading of Don Quixote, at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. The day before, Mateo Díez will hold a meeting with the media, moderated by the Director General of Books, Comics and Reading, María José Gálvez, at the headquarters of the National Library of Spain.

The activities will continue on Thursday 25 April with the opening of the exhibition ‘Vivir contando’ (Living by telling) on the life and work of Mateo Díez, co-organised by the University of Alcalá and the Ministry of Culture. Afterwards, ‘Los días y las cosas’, a photobook in homage to the author, will be presented at the Cervantes Institute. Finally, on Friday 26 April, the writer will hold a colloquium with students at the Complutense University.

The ephemeris in public libraries
At the same time, the network of public libraries is joining in the Book Day celebrations with a variety of activities designed for all types of readers, from thematic exhibitions and meetings with authors, to workshops to encourage reading and activities for children. With these actions, they seek not only to honour the wealth of literature, but also to “encourage a lively and continuous dialogue between books and those who love them”.

The agenda for the event organised by the State Public Libraries in different parts of Spain includes examples such as the State Public Library in Santiago de Compostela, which will hold a literary walk through the city on 23 April; or the State Public Library in Seville, with puppets for the youngest readers.

All the information on Book Day 2024 is available on the website, where you can also download the official poster free of charge in all the languages of Spain or consult the activities that other units of the Ministry of Culture have prepared for this event, especially the State Museums.

Book Days at State Museums
State museums are joining in the celebrations with a programme of activities aimed at highlighting the value of books in order to bring the public closer to their collections and provide them with an in-depth knowledge of them. The Museo Casa de Cervantes, in Valladolid, will hold its annual institutional event in which the Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez, winner of the 2017 Cervantes Prize, has been invited to read a passage from Don Quixote.

Among the activities of the different museums spread throughout the territory, the creative writing workshop ‘Entretiempos’ at the Museo Cerralbo, in Madrid; the illustration workshop ‘Imágenes de imágenes’ at the Museo Nacional de Escultura, in Valladolid; the ‘bookcrossing’ of museums and art centres at the Museo Sefardí, in Toledo; the storytelling ‘El rapto de Europa’ at the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano, in Mérida; or the meetings ‘LEETRAS: Ethnographic experiments for social transformation’ at the National Museum of Anthropology, among many others.

About Book and Copyright Day
World Book and Copyright Day is celebrated every 23 April. The reason is that it was on 23 April 1616 that Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega died. Other eminent writers such as Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo were also born or died on 23 April. For this reason, this symbolic date for world literature was chosen by the UNESCO General Conference in 1995 as a way of encouraging reading, recognising the figure of the author and seeking to strengthen the publishing industry in each country.