By Manal Abdel Fattah
On April 23 of every year, the Embassy of Spain in Cairo celebrates World Book and Copyright Day, a celebration held by many institutions around the world with the aim of promoting the values that books and their reading offer us.
This day has been celebrated globally since 1988, the year in which UNESCO adopted that date to celebrate this day.
But in Spain it has been celebrated since 1930, where it represents a symbolic tribute to great international writers, among them Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), author of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
“Don Quixote for All” is a project that aims to introduce this distinguished work that reflects universal human values and is an internationally famous work by Miguel de Cervantes.
To achieve this goal, professors and students of the Spanish language departments from Egyptian universities – in coordination with the Embassy of Spain in Cairo – read parts of this work in Arabic.
For this purpose, the translation carried out by the distinguished translator and academic Dr. Suleiman Al-Attar was used.
The participating universities include Ain Shams University. , Zagazig University, the City of Culture and Science in 6th of October, Badr University in Cairo, Badr University in Assiut, Helwan University, Cairo University, Al-Azhar University, 6th of October University, and Luxor University, in addition to the Association of Spanish Language Professionals in Egypt.
The result of this project is a collection of videos, illustrated by Egyptian designer Aya Marzouk, and the background music was composed by Egyptian musician Mohab Sami.
It is worth noting that this virtual online activity is a continuation of the activities organized by the Cervantes Institute institutions in Cairo and Alexandria, which include a public in-person reading of Don Quixote in Arabic and Spanish at the Institute’s headquarters.
