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Bookworms rejoice in Jakarta’s City of Literature
Jakarta was awarded the City of Literature designation alongside 40 other cities from 29 countries on Monday, placing it in a global network that recognizes creativity as a major factor in urban development.
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In this photo taken on Sept. 16, 2019, racks of books are set up to entice Jakarta's MRT commuters to read in the 'Pojok Buku' mini library at the Lebak Bulus MRT Station in South Jakarta. (JP/Nina Loasana)
W
riters, publishers, and bookstore owners welcomed Jakarta’s successful bid to become a UNESCO City of Literature this week, with hopes that it will encourage city administrators to create a healthy literary ecosystem and solve age-old problems plaguing the book industry.
The capital was awarded the title alongside 40 other cities from 29 countries on Monday, placing it in the United Nations agency’s Creative Cities Network that recognizes creativity as a major factor in urban development. The cities in the network promote their local creative scene and conform to UNESCO’s goal of fostering cultural diversity.
“Hopefully, Jakarta can establish cooperation with [other] cities on sustainable urban development,” said Indonesia's permanent delegation to UNESCO, Ismunandar, on Thursday.
Jakarta is home to more than 5,000 libraries and 1,000 publishing houses, as well as nearly a third of all modern bookshops in the entire country, according to one industry estimate. Every year, the publishing industry produces some 120,000 titles from some 5,000 publishers nationwide, making Indonesia one of the largest producers of books in all of Southeast Asia.
But there is much work to be done to ensure the capital can foster a healthy and sustainable environment for local literature to flourish and increase interest in reading.
Read also: Jakarta makes bid for UNESCO titles in literature
Adinda Simanjuntak, the director of Aksara Bookstore, one of the capital’s most venerated literature and lifestyle retailers, said that while the literature scene had flourished in recent years with the emergence of indie publishers and bookshops and a variety of literary works, the City of Literature designation was a clarion call to review the capital’s literary ecosystem.
