CITIES OF LITERATURE

International Mother Language Day, which takes place on 21st February each year, promotes unity in diversity and international understanding through multilingualism and multiculturalism and has been internationally recognised since 1999.
 

In 2025 there were a range of activities taking place across the global Cities of Literature network to celebrate International Mother Language Day. 
 

Manchester City of Literature, UK announced two new Multilingual City Poets to represent the importance of language diversity in their city: Charlotte Shevchenko Knight and Nóra Blascsók. Manchester held a city-wide celebration of International Mother Language Day consisting of 22 events including language tours and trails, a multilingual spoken word event and a conference on translation. Many of these can be accessed online via their website.
 

Quebec City of Literature, Canada, presented a round table that brought together Andrée Levesque Sioui, Shaoyu Xu, Mary Thaler and Pedro Carbajal, literary artists whose mother or ancestral languages are not French. They explored the ways this reality has influenced their career and their experience working in Quebec.
 

Dunedin City of Literature, New Zealand, announced the publication of 'The Heat is On: Young Writers on the Climate Crisis'. A thought-provoking volume which is a creative response to the climate crisis facing our planet by young writers under 20 years of age from Cities of Literature around the world. 
 

Barcelona City of Literature, Spain organised a work session for librarians to study how to include Arabic literature in libraries – from the book selection to the design of public activities. This session, organised by the Libraries Consortium of Barcelona and the Barcelona City Council, aimed to point out how to make public libraries more inclusive, how to diversify our cultural offer and how to expand an intercultural framework.

Exeter City of Literature, UK hosted a multilingual translation workshop at the local community centre. The event, ‘Multilingual welcomes: translating hospitality’ was open to ESOL (English for Speakers of other Languages) students, anybody whose home language is not English, and anyone from the wider community who has an interest in translation and language acquisition. This was the first of a series of workshops aimed at celebrating student translingual identities.
Exeter community centre also hosted a special session of long-running Spanish-language conversation group, ‘El conversatorio’. This group is an informal language exchange run by Latin American migrants from the local community. To mark International Mother Language Day, speakers of Spanish, Portuguese and pre-Columbian indigenous Latin American languages were invited to: ‘Estamos vivos porque estamos en movimiento: translating Latinx identity and culture’, and discussed the languages and cultures of hospitality in Latin America, Spain and the UK.
 

Kuhmo City of Literature, Finland hosted a lecture on languages by Jyrki Korpua at the Juminkeko Centre organised by the Town Library and Juminkeko to celebrate International Mother Language Day.