National Book Council gifts 13,000 books to Malta’s healthcare front liners

The National Book Council (NBC) has this afternoon presented a donation of around 13,000 books to Malta’s COVID-19 healthcare front liners, which will be distributed to healthcare workers in Malta and Gozo in the coming weeks.

The donation was presented at the Ministry for Health in Valletta by the NBC Executive Director Simona Cassano and Minister for Education Hon. Justyne Caruana to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Health Hon. Chris Fearne, who received the books on behalf of healthcare front liners.

With this gesture the NBC would like to extend its appreciation to the valuable work of carers, nurses, doctors and all hospital staff who serve on the frontline to ensure the safety and quality of care of their patients. Over the past year many have had to make a tremendous sacrifice to deliver national healthcare services during a global pandemic, also reminding us that we all depend upon their dedication at some point in our lives. 

The books being gifted include more than twenty acclaimed National Book Prize winning novels, short-story and poetry collections, literary translations, and works of nonfiction, in the Maltese and English language, published by local publishers in the past five years. It is in the Council’s hope that with these worthy titles we are able to share the well deserved joy of reading.

With this tribute to healthcare front liners, the NBC is making its first major book donation this year, with a value of over €113,000. With the aim of supporting Malta’s publishing community, the National Book Council has made a number of other extraordinary purchases in 2020 amounting to €150,000 as part of an array of initiatives which have helped sustain the book industry through the pandemic.

As in previous years, a number of entities and institutions, namely Malta Libraries as well as NGOs, will benefit from book donations from the NBC in the months to come.