Protest Signs Written by Renowned Authors Are Helping the Fight Against Climate Change

The Gothenburg Book Fair - the largest cultural event in the Nordics - has the Climate Crisis as its theme this year. To illustrate the power of literature, the Gothenburg Book Fair has asked some of our most acclaimed authors to write protest signs for the climate. The signs are available in a digital library where everyone can borrow the words of some of the great authors of our time, to respond to the greatest challenge of our time. 

Literature has a unique ability to upset, touch and inspire us. In response to the climate crisis, the Gothenburg Book Fair has asked about fifty distinguished authors from around the globe to write their own protest signs in favour of the climate - also called Hope Signs - and make them available for anyone to use. Globally recognised authors like Jojo Moyes, Anthony Doerr, Lauren Groff, and David Lagercrantz, and climate activists such as Naomi Klein and Vanessa Nakate, together create a collection of visually striking signs filled with impactful and hopeful messages.

The Hope Signs are available in a digital library where everyone can access the authors' words about the climate crisis. By downloading the signs, they can be used in climate protests or shared on social media to fight for climate action online.

"The Climate Crisis theme at this year’s Gothenburg Book Fair is about uniting culture and science to engage and mobilize people around the greatest challenge of our time. The purpose of Hope Signs is to illustrate the power of the written word and writers’ ability to inspire change. We hope that the signs will evoke interest, reflection, and action, both amongst the authors themselves, our visitors at the book fair and anyone else who comes across them," says Oskar Ekström, program director at the Gothenburg Book Fair.

"The written word has a unique ability to inspire and create change. That’s why we are very happy that so many authors have collaborated with The Gothenburg Book Fair to create a digital library of protest signs, giving the whole world access to powerful words in the fight against climate change," says Jacob Björdal, creative director at NORD DDB.

Physical versions of the protest signs can be experienced at the Gothenburg Book Fair and in a Hope Signs Pop-up. The signs will be exhibited in the area for the Climate Crisis theme at the book fair and will frame the center stage where authors, researchers, journalists, and activists from around the world will meet in conversations and debates about the climate.

Swedish graphic designer Johanna Burai has designed the Hope Signs and the design is inspired by the colors of heat maps – as a visual reminder of global warming – as well as the graphic shapes of warning signs to represent the urgent situation in which we find ourselves.