23rd of April

In case you don't remember, yesterday, 23rd of April,  is the international reading day - a day which is hard to ignore by me.   The day William Shakespeare, the greatest poet in the English language, was born in 1564 and that it's the day he died in 1616. It's the very same day that William Wordsworth wandered his last lonely walk, as did the great Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, the writer of western classic Don Quixote.

Now I've learned that it's also the day that Henry Vaughan ( the Welsh metaphysical poet), Rupert Brooke (an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War) and Harold Arlen (an American Jewish composer of popular music) took their last breath. As if not enough ..... it's also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as Maurice Druon, K.Laxness, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.

It was a natural choice for UNESCO to pay a world-wide tribute to books and authors on this date, encouraging everyone, and in particular young people, to discover the pleasure of reading and gain a renewed respect for the irreplaceable contributions of those who have furthered the social and cultural progress of humanity.

Lastly, it's the birth date of a friend (ex-collègue, to be exact) as well.