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PEN Nigeria celebrates World Book Day 2021

By Omiko Awa
28 February 2021   |   4:01 am
PEN Nigeria will joins over 100 countries across the world in celebrating this year’s World Book Day, a day set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation...

PEN Nigeria will joins over 100 countries across the world in celebrating this year’s World Book Day, a day set aside by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) to celebrate authors, illustrators, books and reading – to assist young people to encounter the power and pleasures of books and reading, and to stimulate in them the love of literature.

President, Nigerian Centre of PEN International (aka PEN Nigeria), Folu Agoi, said the day “is a global assembly of children of all ages across the world who come together to celebrate books and everything connected with books. It is a day to launch and/or reactivate book clubs, and to offer free books, including audio books, to children, a special day to share stories, experiences and books with the children, to inspire the youth to share their own stories with one another, a day to reward excellence with prizes.”

He added, “this edition of the yearly event will hold on Thursday, March 4, 2021, being the first Thursday in March; and PEN Nigeria has finalised arrangements to celebrate the literary feast with the pupils of Air Force Primary Schools 1, 2, 3 and Air Force Secondary School, Ikeja, Lagos.”

PEN Nigeria has – since November 21, 2001 – been an affiliate of PEN International (International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists), a worldwide Association of writers, founded in London in 1921, known to play a leading role in promoting literature as a force of global culture and defending free speech and linguistic rights across the world. Membership of the Association is open to all writers in Nigeria. The term ‘writer’ is used by PEN International as an all-inclusive term for anyone involved with the word – written or spoken, who could be a poet, playwright, editor, essayist, novelist, academic, journalist, blogger, translator, biographer or publisher.

The highlights of the event organised by PEN Nigeria for the pupils at Sam Ethnan Air Force Base, Ikeja, Lagos to commemorate this year’s World Book Day, scheduled to hold at Air Force Primary School 2, Ikeja, include: Award to teenage authors, book donation to all the schools and
Guidance and Counseling talks.

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