UNESCO Cities of Literature

Dublin is one of 53 UNESCO cities of literature in the world belonging to a cluster which represents 6 continents and 39 countries, and a combined population of over 26 million.

There are 6 other creative fields in the wider UNESCO Creative Cities Network including music, design, media arts, folk & craft arts, gastronomy and film.

To be approved as a City of Literature, cities need to meet a number of criteria set by UNESCO. Designated UNESCO Cities of Literature share similar characteristics:

Quality, quantity and diversity of publishing in the city

Quality and quantity of educational programmes focusing on domestic or foreign literature at primary, secondary and tertiary levels.
Literature, drama and/or poetry playing an important role in the city.
Hosting literary events and festivals which promote domestic and foreign literature.
Existence of libraries, bookstores and public or private cultural centres which preserve, promote and disseminate domestic and foreign literature.
Involvement by the publishing sector in translating literary works from diverse national languages and foreign literature.
Active involvement of traditional and new media in promoting literature and strengthening the market for literary products.

Cities submit bids to UNESCO to be designated a City of Literature. The designations are monitored and reviewed every four years by the organization.

Our values

As Cities of Literature, we have committed to the following values that guide our work, relationships and activities:

We will build a welcoming and cooperative network that reflects the diversity and richness of the world’s languages and literatures;
We will promote the value of dialogue and freedom of speech and expression in all our activities;
We will pursue through the network international opportunities that benefit our local and national literary sectors;
We will work to strengthen the relationships between all creative cities around the globe;
We will be active and proactive in our communications with each other and our partners.

Projects with other UNESCO cities

The annual cities of literature conference in 2024 was held in Edinburgh to mark 20 years of Edinburgh being the first city of literature in the UNESCO Creative Cities of Literature network. To mark the occasion, Melbourne city of literature proposed that cities of literature commission a local poet to write a poem. Local Dublin poet, Charlotte Buckley wrote Dublin’s poem. Charlotte was supported by Dublin UNESCO city of literature for mentoring under Words Ireland’s National Mentoring programme. Her poetry has appeared in The Stinging Fly, Ambit, and The Rialto. Her work has been listed for the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize, the Poetry Book Society's Women's Poetry Competition, and the Basil Bunting Poetry Award. She lives in Dublin where she is doing a PhD in ecofeminist poetry.

Listen to The Roads that lead to Edinburgh.

To mark the attendance of creative cities at the 16th Annual UNESCO creative cities’ meeting in Braga, Portugal, each city of literature was asked to send a letter from a youth to a youth in the future, audio recordings of poems about cities of literature for a poetry sound project and texts of poems for a performance piece in a public garden in Braga.

Fighting Words chose a young poet, Éire Ní Fhaoláin to write a letter from a youth to a youth in the future. Her letter in English and Portuguese was put in a time capsule along with letters from other young people.

Recordings of Dublin poems from Eavan Boland, Kerrie O’Brien, John Cummins, Richard Brennan and Sara Creighton-Keogh featured in a soundscape of poems in a public garden mingled with poems from cities across the globe. Thomas Kinsella’s Westland Row, Gerard Smyth’s The Sound of Portuguese, passages from The Dead by James Joyce and Snowflake, this year’s One Dublin One Book by Louise Nealon were read out on old telephones in a museum garden in the heart of Braga.

Our Stories was a conference celebrating LGBTQ+ Inclusive books & publishing in November 2023. The conference in partnership with three UNESCO Cities of Literature, Dublin, Manchester and Nottingham marked the culmination of work produced by Rainbow library groups in Ireland and the UK.

From 2020 to 2023, with funding from the arts council in the UK, Northern Ireland and Creative Ireland, Pop-Up Projects – a London based children’s literature agency produced an ambitious LGBTQ+ literature creation project called The Rainbow Library.

The Dublin celebratory conference focused on children’s and YA books and publishing and was held on 11th November 2023, in Bedford Hall, Dublin Castle. Aimed at young people (16-26) who are currently writing and illustrating, the conference brought industry professionals from the publishing world in Ireland and young creatives together to encourage them to produce work for young readers and inspire more diversity of under-represented voices in books for all ages.

The conference was live streamed and is a useful resource for aspiring writers.

Funded by The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport & Media.

Joining forces with Literature Ireland in celebrating 25 years of promoting Irish literature and making it available in other languages, Dublin UNESCO City of literature connected with 5 other cities of literature, Bucheon & Wonju in South Korea, Obidos in Portugal, Quebec in Canada and Reykjavik, Iceland, on a translation project.

Five contemporary Irish short stories by Claire Keegan, Danielle McLaughlin, Mary Costello, Kevin Barry and Wendy Erskine have been translated into Korean, Portuguese, French and Icelandic by translators Jiyang Noh, Jeehyun Shin, Vasco Gato, Pascal Raud and Ingunn Snædal.

Read the bilingual publications.

The collaboration is named Seoda, after the word for ‘jewels’ in Irish, and is supported by The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Ireland.