Antwerp Book City
Antwerp is the book metropolis of Flanders, just as Amsterdam is for the Netherlands. In the Schelde City there are around a hundred organisations that actively promote books and literature: publishers, bookshops, literary organisers, the Flemish Fund for Literature, Stichting Lezen [Reading Foundation], the Flemish Authors Association, the Letterenhuis, the City Library and the public libraries, Creative Writing, Boek.be and, we mustn't forget, all the authors who live and work there.
The operation of Antwerp Book City is integrated into the Letterenhuis. Book City provides support for existing literary events and projects and a promotional policy that profiles Antwerp as book metropolis.
Antwerp Book City is the point of contact for requirements and questions on the literary sector in Antwerp. In addition to this coordinating role, Antwerp Book City supports and initiates activities around reading, writing and story telling, in all aspects and forms of expression. Book City coordinates the Antwerp city poet position.
World Book City 2004
Antwerp Book City was founded in 2003. The aim was to give shape to the city literature policy. In 2004, Antwerp was named World Book City 2004 by UNESCO. Between April 23 2004 and April 22, 2005, ABC2004 offered an adventurous and broad programme that placed literature and the book in Antwerp in the spotlight.