I mentioned the contest for the title of 'World Book Capital 2014' a few days ago, and now UNESCO has announced that Port Harcourt named "World Book Capital 2014" -- beating out Oxford, among others (scroll down here for all eleven finalists).
(Yerevan, of course, is the current World Book Capital City, and it is Bangkok's turn next year; given that the only previous African city to hold the title was ... Alexandria, in 2002, the announcement perhaps does not come entirely as a surprise.)
As they note:
As they note:
The city of Port Harcourt was chosen "on account of the quality of its programme, in particular its focus on youth and the impact it will have on improving Nigeria's culture of books, reading, writing and publishing to improve literacy rates," according to the Selection Committee.There's certainly good potential here, and I hope the Nigerians take advantage of it, and the time they have to prepare.