A piece of Midwestern literary culture now resides in one of the world’s oldest libraries in Alexandria, Egypt, thanks to a joint effort by nonprofits Books for Africa, Little Free Library, Minnesota Friends of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Minnesota Book Awards program.
Books for Africa has a warehouse at 635 N. Prior Ave., just north of University Avenue.
In October, Patrick Plonski, executive director of Books for Africa, presented Bibliotheca Alexandrina officials with a Little Free Library filled with award-winning books by Minnesota authors who had been recognized in the recent Minnesota Book Awards ceremony. The library originally opened in the third century and has been recreated in recent years.
The Little Free Library presented there is painted with a birch tree motif that evokes Minnesota’s woodlands. Books for Africa has distributed more than 40 million books and large numbers of computers and e-readers to nearly every African country over the past 30 years.
