The bookshops for which the town is now world-famous are a relatively recent innovation. The name most closely associated with the book trade in Hay is that of Richard Booth[?], who on April 1, 1977 sought publicity by declaring Hay an "independent republic" with himself as its king.
Since 1988, Hay has been the venue for a literary festival which draws audiences from all over the UK to see and hear big literary names from all over the world.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump