kolkata in a bid to make kolkata the first unesco city of literature in india the state has decided to work with norwich the first city in england to bag the title during mamata banerjees recent trip to england west bengal representatives met the officials of writers centre norwich wcn hoping to learn from norwichs success the two cities are also thinking of working together on a literary project writing places norwich won the honour in 2012 and the literary mark of excellence is shared by a select few cities around the world including edinburgh scotland melbourne australia iowa city us dublin ireland reykjavk iceland krakw poland heidelberg germany granada spain and prague czech republic kolkata is the cultural capital of the country and we want our city to become a member of the prestigious group we will work in close coordination with norwich officials representatives from both the cities will visit the two places for exchange of ideas they have accepted our proposal and are chalking out the plan said atri bhattacharyay secretary of information and culture department arts council england has made a funding of 26900 for an innovative literary project writing places under the project the initial funding is made for a scheme called creative city alliance scheme in which the citys top literary organizations will hold meetings conferences and seminars both in norwich and kolkata in these workshops and seminars literary personalities from the two cities will exchange their ideas which will help establish literary links between norwich and kolkata which in turn will the city to make a constructive effort in moving a step forward towards achieving this prestigious recognition said director of british council east india sujata sen who accompanied the government delegation the delegation visited writers centre norwich at dragon hall the university of east anglias creative writing department met representatives from the norwichbased british centre for literary translation and visited the south asian decorative arts and crafts collection the state is thinking of creating a similar kind of writers centre in the city a source said unescos city of literature programme is part of its creative cities network which was launched in 2004 the network was born out of unescos global alliance for cultural diversity initiative with an aim to promote the social economic and cultural development of cities in both the developed and the developing world the cities in network promote their local creative scene and conform to unescos goal of fostering cultural diversity an important aspect of the creative cities is that the cities foster publicprivate partnerships particularly by encouraging the entrepreneurial and creative potential of small enterprises literature is one of the several categories of creative cities others include music film media gastronomy folk art and design