Rabat announces 300 literary events, but a British writer is still looking for them

Ben Aitken had chosen Rabat for a specific reason. Designated World Book Capital 2026 by Unesco, the city is due to host more than 300 meetings, exhibitions and events over the course of a year, all aimed at promoting reading.

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The British writer therefore hoped to make his stay revolve around books. He visited the medina, the Oudayas, the Chellah and the Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, but struggled to find clear information about the literary programme that was supposed to provide the guiding thread of his trip.

“Despite all my efforts, the exact nature of the more than 300 events the city is supposed to organise remains a mystery,” he writes in The Guardian.

A Nearly Invisible Book Capital

His observation does not mean that the announced events do not exist. Above all, it highlights their lack of visibility for a foreign visitor who came to Rabat specifically to discover them. No identifiable programme seems to have emerged naturally during his stay.

This disappointment did not stop him from falling under the capital’s spell. He describes a lively but peaceful medina, the white houses of the Oudayas, the sunset over the ocean and the remains of the Chellah. He also praises Moroccan cuisine and the sense of tranquillity he experienced in the city.

His conclusion is as flattering as it is embarrassing for the organisers: he advises against coming to Rabat solely because it is World Book Capital, but strongly recommends the city in its own right.

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Before leaving, Ben Aitken eventually found a genuine connection with reading in a small second-hand bookshop in the medina. There he discovered a copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary, the book that had given him a taste for reading at 19, and then left it there so that another reader might, in turn, come across it by chance.