In times of quarantine, reading is a great ally. From April 20th to 24th, the Costa Rica Book Fair will be held virtually, this due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, and will feature teleconferences, repertoires and audiovisual productions.
The Minister of Culture and Youth, Sylvie DuránSalvatierra said: “In times of confinement, we must make the most from the pleasure of reading. This year 2020 poses an exceptional challenge and is to take advantage of all the new proposals that are given around how to approach reading by choosing a book, audiobook, short story, and the liking of each of these options”.
She explained that the Ministry of Culture and Youth, the State Distance University, the National Library System, the College of Costa Rica, the National Printing Office, the “CarreticaCuentera” (storytelling) and Bookclub initiatives have created a series of ideas that pose the different challenges of reading according to the likes of different generations.
Government Establishes Special Measures for Movement by Workers of the Agricultural Sector Immersing ourselves in reading allows us, among other things, to abstract for a time from reality, the one that today keeps us busy around COVID-19. Therefore, what we want is for people to make the most of their time and enjoy a good book,” said the Culture and Youth minister.
Activities to be carried out:
-Colegio de Costa Rica (CRC): Álvaro Rojas, coordinator of the CRC, reported that this instance will conduct a virtual conversation with the 2019 winners of the National Prize for Culture in Literature Aquileo J. Echeverría: Guillermo Acuña, Essay; Camila Schumacher, Short story; Guillermo Fernández, Novel; Arabella Salaverry, Poetry; Bryan Vindas, Dramaturgy.
-National Library System: From April 20th to 24th, the 62 national public libraries will carry out various activities through social networks and with the support of the website www.sinabi.go.cr, which will allow the public to identify national authors, promote their work and recognize their contribution to the country’s culture. The offer includes exhibitions, talks, presentations of new books by their authors, public reading of works, among others.
-Carretica Cuentera: It will offer on its social networks a repertoire of educational challenges from home, with which it will be possible to stimulate reading, creative writing, as well as imagination and creativity in families. It will publish audios with children’s poems by Lope de Vega and by Rubén Darío, with challenges for girls and boys to illustrate verses and write stories with the rhymes recited.
The organization will reward the most creative stories with its storybook “Sueños entre Palabras”. In addition, in alliance with the Humanistic College of Nicoya, CarreticaCuentera will publish Tales for a Crisis: short texts, poems, drawings and songs written by young Guanacasteans who narrate how they live in these times of quarantine and how they believe that the Costa Rican society will change for the better after the Coronavirus .
-UNED Editorial: They will highlight the importance of reading to maintain good mental health, by a series of activities, challenges and awards through the publisher’s various social networks, from Monday, April 20th to May 4th, 2020.
-The Club de Libros (Book club): It will carry out a Virtual Festival in schools and bookstores in the country, which, through videos on Facebook, will allow children to interact with Club de Libros writers. In addition to answering questions, the authors will read stories and interpret songs. Children and young people will be invited to participate in workshops to promote reading on the Zoom platform. The videos can later be seen on the ClubdeLibrosTV YouTube Channel: https://tinyurl.com/yczjba7g
-National Printing Office of Costa Rica: It will allow access to literary titles for free with content for children, youth, Costa Rican literature, universal literature, as well as publications on history, geography and audiobooks through the website: https://www.imprentanacional.go.cr/editorialdigital/
