April 23 has long been an important date in world literature. It’s the traditional death date of contemporaries William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, as well as poets William Wordsworth, Rupert Brooke, and even P. L. Travers, the creator of Mary Poppins. It’s also the birth date of notables such as Nobel Laureate Halldór Laxness and one of my favourite mystery novelists, Ngaio Marsh. It’s no wonder, then, that UNESCO chose this date for World Book and Copyright Day, aka the International Day of the Book. (It’s held earlier in the year in the UK and Ireland because of Easter school holidays)
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