book diplomacy

As World War II ended, America faced another challenge: the Cold War with the USSR and the Eastern Bloc it influenced. As relations began to freeze, it became clear that nuclear weapons, spies, and the traditional tools of war wouldn’t be enough to fight Soviet hegemony. And so the West, argues Greg Barnhisel, turned to their secret weapon: books.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Serbian literature generally referred to Albanians an uncivilized nation. Such an image of them was created by anti-Albanian politics and propaganda of the ruling regimes, and some well-known writers also succumbed to this. [...] There is a strong desire to raise the level of knowledge about one another, which is worryingly low, and therefore subject to all possible disinformation, stereotypes, conspiracy theories.

The 24-year-old Massey masters student, along with her sister, Tamra Ewing, now heads up a literacy charity called Motorbike Book Club - a mobile book library for village children in Vietnam. As the name suggests, the books are transported on the back of a motorbike to places where books - let alone libraries - are hard to come by. "I'm passionate about education. I see the value in it - the power of literacy to really transform and open up children's worlds."

The Fair will hold numerous activities in secondary venues in the Vedado district of the city such as the Dulce María Loynaz Center, the Casa del Alba Cultural and the Cuban Association of the United Nations. The Cuba Pavilion, the headquarters of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba and the University of Havana will also offer opportunities for cultural exchange and enrichment.

The Taipei International Book Exhibition 2017 opened at the Taipei World Trade Center Wednesday, featuring representatives from hundreds of publishers along with a wide range of activities, including keynote speeches, lectures, reading sessions, publication introductions and cultural performances.

'Korea Corner' has been set up at Kigali Public Library in Kacyiru. It aims to increase access to Korean literature and culture for Rwandans. [...] "Though Korea is geographically far away from Rwanda, the psychological distance between people can be shortened. This will help bridge the distance between the two countries," he said.

When Corea Image Communication Institute (CICI) President Choi Jung-wha became an international conference interpreter in the late ‘80s, many foreigners either knew nothing or new very little of Korea. For instance, and when somebody finally recognized the country's name, he or she would say that the late Kim Jong-il, father of Jong-un, was the country's president. Choi's newly published book "K-Style" is not your typical geographical guidebook ― it does not feed readers with the usual information about Korea.

Daya Kishan Thussu’s Communicating India’s Soft Power: Buddha to Bollywood (Sage, 2016) is a rare resource on the subject of the country’s ‘soft power’. As the author himself claims, “on the soft power of China itself there are at least half a dozen books published in English – many more in Mandarin – while in the case of India the terrain is blank, despite its large array of soft power elements”. 

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