The Open Book Festival and Granta Publishers (UK), have formed a partnership for 2013 that will see almost 25 000 books donated to libraries around South Africa as part of the 2013 Open Book Festival programme.
Called Pulp Fiction, the project is the brainchild of Mervyn Sloman of the Book Lounge and Open Book. Knowing that a large portion of unsold books is pulped annually around the world, he called on Granta to, instead of pulping, donate their unused books for use in local schools and libraries.
“It seems such a pity that with so many libraries, especially those in schools, in desperate need of books, so many books get pulped across the world each year. Granta’s extremely generous donation of 24 496 books to this project enables us to draw attention to the need to support libraries across the country. It also of course puts almost 25 000 books into libraries across South Africa. Granta has been incredibly generous in covering all the costs of getting these books to Cape Town,” says Mervyn.
Stuart Cairns, part of the Book Lounge team and successful artist will be conceptualizing and creating an installation at the Fugard Theatre during the festival which will be broken down on 12th September (the day after the festival ends) by librarians from around the country. Using the age-old adage of ‘finders keepers’, any books that are taken are kept and disseminated at each librarian’s library.
Open Book also runs a library project each year in partnership with Equal Education and anyone who would like to help the Open Book team in their quest to put together a top class library for Westridge High School in Mitchells Plain can contact Open Book Festival Co-ordinator, Frankie Murrey, on Frankie@openbookfestival.co.za.
To view the installation, come to the Open Book Festival, taking place from Saturday September 7 – Wednesday September 11. For more information visit www.openbookfestival.co.za. Book for all events via Webtickets (www.webtickets.co.za).
ENDS
For more information about Open Book Festival, email Frankie Murrey on frankie@openbookfestival.co.za
For any media pass or interview requests please contact:
Amplicon Public Relations on behalf of the Open Book Literary Festival
Kelly Atherton
info@ampliconpr.com
021 424 4802
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