Madar (Rabat) - The Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco has opened the cultural dialogues of its "House of Book Worlds" in Rabat, in the presence of three Nobel Prize winners, two of them literature laureates, Moroccan daily Hespress reported on Saturday, 17 October 2026. The project is part of the academy's programme marking UNESCO's designation of Rabat as World Book Capital for 2026.
According to the academy's permanent secretary, Abdeljalil Lahjomri, the house begins with 54 books representing the continent's 54 countries, one work of fiction or humanities from each, and two venues in Rabat for writers' residencies, debates and an African library. He said the list is not closed but meant to grow to include contemporary literature, founding narratives, oral traditions, inscriptions and manuscripts.
Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, said he hoped history would remember the day because "at least in literary terms, Africa met here", Hespress reported.
French Nobel laureate J.M.G. Le Clezio said that without books "our culture would be very fragile", arguing that anyone who knows only their own culture knows only part of it, since "all cultures are the result of encounters and exchange".
