Literature
There is a greater number of bookshops per capita in Melbourne than any other Australian city. In August 2008, Melbourne was designated as a City of Literature in UNESCO's Creative Cities Network program, recognising the role literature plays in the cultural life of Melbourne through its festivals, libraries, bookshops, publishing and other literary events and activities.
The Melbourne Writers Festival plays a significant role in establishing Melbourne's credence as a city which promotes and respects literature.
The Wheeler Centre a literary and publishing centre housed in the southern wing of the State Library of Victoria opened in February 2010.
Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab (1886), set in boom time Melbourne, remains a classic of crime fiction. Hume gathered material for the novel during sojourns in Melbourne's slums and Little Bourke Street.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Melbourne
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent businessman.”
—Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)
“Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead.”
—Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951)
“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.... American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)