The National Book Council (NBC) has presented a donation of around 13,000 books to Malta’s COVID-19 healthcare frontliners, which are being distributed to healthcare workers in Malta and Gozo.

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

Through 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 front line to ensure the safety and quality of care of their patients.

The books being gifted include more than 20 acclaimed National Book Prize-winning novels, short story and poetry collections, literary translations and works of non-fiction, in the Maltese and English language, published by local publishers in the past five years.

With this tribute to healthcare frontliners, the NBC is making its first major book donation this year, with a value of over €122,000. 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.

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