Amman aspires to become 'A City that Reads'

AMMAN –– Downtown Amman’s Hashemite Square and the Roman Theatre will host a reading festival this month that aims to instil a culture of reading in the capital. 

The three-day festival, titled “Our Mother Amman… A City that Reads", is scheduled to open on April 24. 

Co-organised by the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and Uzbakiyet Amman, the festival will exhibit around 40,000 new and used books.

In addition, cultural and artistic events will be held at the nearby Roman Theatre, according to Samer Kheir, GAM’s Cultural Department director. 

Amman Mayor Aqel Biltaji and representatives from Uzbakiyet Amman met earlier this week to discuss arrangements for the festival, Uzbakiyeh Director General Hussein Yassein told The Jordan Times over the phone.

The festival will be open for book lovers between 9am and 9pm throughout the three days.

“Used books will be sold for between JD0.10 to JD2 after a discount of up to 70 per cent, while the maximum price of new books will be around JD7, which is 30 to 40 per cent cheaper than market prices,” Yassein added.

There will be Arabic and English books covering various fields such as culture, geography and philosophy.

Yassein said the cultural and artistic events include traditional storytelling, better known as Al Hakawati, poetry recitals and street theatre.

“The festival will try to form a huge human chain of at least 1,000 people reading books, titled ‘Each Carries a Book,’” he added.