For decades, Gothenburg Book Fair – the biggest cultural event in the Nordics – has championed the importance of the written word. This year, the theme of the fair was the climate crisis. But what role does literature play in a crisis that requires action, not words?

A unique partnership between a book fair and literary talent, Hope Signs is a digital library of protest signs, written by over 50 renowned authors – including NY Times bestselling writers and Pulitzer Prize winners. It invites everyone to use the writers’ words as weapons to create change, through online and real-world protests. Each writer’s words became open source poems, prose and punchlines, available for the public to download or recreate to tackle the climate crisis. To make sure the project appealed to all types of readers, a wide variety of writers took part – from science writers to authors children’s books. At a time when many lack words to tackle this urgent crisis, everyone can now use the words of our greatest writers.

For the climate, action speaks louder than words. But history shows that the right words can inspire a lot of action. Protest signs have played an important role in many of the most influential movements. But up until now, it’s always been up to the activists themselves to write the signs. As the Nordics’ most-important meeting place for writers, Gothenburg Book Fair decided to let writers contribute to the fight against climate change, through a series of protest signs available for anyone to borrow. Opening a digital library with the call-to-action: borrow the words of our greatest writers to tackle climate change.

Hope Signs launched with over 50 signs written by Swedish and international writers, including Naomi Klein, Jojo Moyes, Max Porter, and David Lagercrantz.

The signs were made available for anyone to borrow on a digital library: hopesigns.bokmassan.se.

Instead of a book release, Gothenburg Book Fair hosted a protest sign release at the fair, where all signs were revealed to over 80 000 visitors.

The signs were also spread across other media, with print ads in Sweden’s major newspapers (DN, GP), social posts, as well as the authors and their publishers own social media, where they announced their new signs, just like they would a book.

The Hope Signs library was used by people in 51 countries

The campaign had over 10 000 000 impressions – in a country of 10 000 000 people

50+ writers – including Pulitzer Prize winners and New York Times best-selling authors – have contributed so far. But the library continues to grow as more writers add their words.