The Union of Writers of Belarus plans to more actively shift the works of its authors into the format of audio-books

By Veniamin Mikheev

The Union of Writers of Belarus plans to more actively shift the works of its authors into the format of audio-books

The Chairman of the Union of Writers of Belarus, Nikolay Cherginets, believes that Belarusian writers need to present their creativity on the Internet as widely as possible, taking into account contemporary tendencies. “At present, over 200 books by our authors are available on the Internet; there’re also many audio-books, and we’ll continue increasing their number,” he said.

Moreover, the Chairman of the Writers’ Union regrets that it often happens that the rights of creative people in total and of writers in particular, aren’t always protected at a decent level. As an example of copyright infringement, he cited the case when the largest foreign publisher published the works of a Belarusian author without his consent. “There are many such authors in our country,” noted Mr. Cherginets.

Mr. Cherginets also paid attention that the public organisation tries to find opportunities to support its authors. For example, together with two private publishing houses, they continue the release of a series of books, entitled The Library of the Union of Writers of Belarus; so far, around 1,000 books have been published. Moreover, private publishers release these books free of charge and the author doesn’t receive the fee, yet he is given 100 books.

According to Mr. Cherginets, on average, over 200 books by writers of the Union of Writers of Belarus are released annually in state and private publishing houses. The brightest pieces of the previous year become winners of the Republican literary contest, whose results are summed up during the Day of Belarusian Written Language which was hosted by Zaslavl this year.