Spanish Royal Academy and YouTube offer Don Quixote

- The Royal Spanish Academy and YouTube have launched the first global reading of Don Quixote on the Internet, 2,100 Spanish speaking citizens from anywhere in the world will be able to participate.

This project, with the collaboration of all the Spanish Language Academies in all of America, will be presented on Sept. 30 at the headquarters of the RSA, in a ceremony with the presence of Royal Academy Director, Victor Garcia de la Concha, and the CEO of Google Spain, Javier Rodriguez Zapatero.

According to RSA sources the novel’s reference book to be used in this project is the popular edition published by the Academy in 2004, that celebrated the fourth centennial of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s masterpiece.

That edition is divided into more than 2,100 fragments, which is also the number of participants that are needed to complete the book reading.

YouTube, owned by Google, will provide the ‘Quixote’ Channel to the readers, through which any registered user, the largest in the world, can share his or her desire to participate by reading and submitting a piece of the novel.

The RSA has so far published five special editions of Don Quixote, the first appeared in 1780, edited by Joaquín Ibarra. Then came the 1782, 1787, 1819 and, finally, the popular 2004 edition, published by Santillana and which has sold over three million copies.

This Royal Spanish Academy – YouTube collaboration is part of the Academy’s mission promoting Don Quixote and other great Spanish masterpieces in a way that is in accord with the times and present habits.