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India's First UNESCO City of Literature.
On June 22, 2024, Silver Hills had the privilege to host Professor Nagesh S. a distinguished figure in contemporary literature and academia, known for his profound contributions to literary criticism and cultural study.Speaking on being honoured as the literature city everyone thinks this is in connection with something to do with literature and books, but that's not the case. For UNESCO, it was the traders who came to Calicut as far as Rome some 2000 years back. We Kozhikodens have the oldest literary festival in the world. The Revathi Pathathanam is an annual assembly of scholars held since ancient times in Kozhikode. Since the last 400 years, we have been having this seven-day festival at Tali. Its traders played an important role in taking our literature outside the country to other parts of the world. Hence, we are awarded this prestigious title. It's a matter of great pride from now on wherever we go. It will be proudly said that we are the first literature city in the county.
There are extraordinary numbers of libraries in Calicut. Kozhikode showcases around 550 libraries, and this shows how literature has permeated the lives of ordinary people. We have a literary park right in the middle city with many statues. In the last 500 years, an extraordinary series of revolutions took place, and the reason behind that was due to the printing press. Once this came into being books became cheap, people started reading, and knowledge and reading spread like wild fire. Then came the Internet that made reading a passion. In another 100 years from now, another explosion will take place where reading will move completely from printed books to entirely that on the Internet. Reading is the centre of civilization, and that's why books and reading are very important.
