Sharjah Book Fair Aims to ‘Create a New Record’
Buzz is beginning to circulate about this year’s Sharjah International Book Fair, an eleven-day festival set to open November 4:
The Sharjah fair has swollen from just a handful of literary events in 2007 to a promised “nearly 900” — or “more than 900” — events set for 2015, as well as a promised 1.5 million individual book titles.
The fair is also “guaranteed” to beat its previous visitor count of 1.47 million, according to book-fair director Ahmad Al Ameri, who is also the chair of the Sharjah Book Authority.
In a 2010 interview, Al Ameri said that, way back in 2007, there were only nine cultural events at Sharjah’s fair. Although the fair has by now been running more than thirty years, for most of its history, the SIBF was like many other book fairs in the region: mostly a way for city residents to gain access to a selection of discounted books in a less-censorious environment.
That began to change after 2007. That was the year when the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH) got together with the Frankfurt Book Fair to launch the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. In 2009, neighboring Dubai held its inaugural “Emirates Airlines Literary Festival.”
And, as Dubai launched its fest, Sharjah also moved toward offering something bigger. In 2009, Al Ameri said, “we increased from around ten [professional and cultural events] to 150. This year [2010] is 200-something.”
And by 2015, Gulf Today reports, organizers are “set to create a new record.” This includes playing host to 1.5 million individual book titles from 1,502 publishing houses, hailing from 64 countries.
To support all its events, the SIBF plans to have a large contingent of visiting authors, with globally prominent writers like Nigerian novelist Ben Okri as well as a particular focus on regionally acclaimed writers from southeast Asia. There are no “gotchya” guests as in past years, as when Dan Brown and Adel Imam headlined the 2014 fair, but a strong contingent of Arab, Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi authors and artists.
Also, for the first time at SIBF, a comics zone will be set up, promising the participation of 26 specialised publishing houses.
The Sharjah Book Fair is often chaotic, with writers sometimes mashed together on lopsided panels, underattended and underpromoted events with great authors, masses of children, and too many things going on at the same time. Certainly there are complaints to be made about what all this record-setting is trending toward. But the growing presence of Southeast Asian publishers is certainly to be celebrated, and it remains a wonderful meeting-place for book lovers and a good opportunity for Arab publishers to sell books.
October 8, 2015 @ 1:59 pm
Reblogged this on Zahra's Blog and commented:
Miss you Sharjah !
October 11, 2015 @ 5:46 pm
Appropriate a I is the largest of the errors , the wise knows that there is no barrier between things, and does not appropriate transitional character emotions, what they perceive, as which his unconscious incriminates or discriminates things, to know or not to know, his own physical appearance, is not concerned by creating the illusion of permanence of things, because he knows that this is the cause of suffering. An example of suffering, you say to a person that the message of Siddhartha disappeared it is almost impossible to understand what he said today, over time by dissolving the basic meaning of the original language and by the successive deformations of the interpretation of what he said. You see a person believes you, and of suffering in his eyes to know. Is it the suffering created by one of the five aggregates knowledge. We can also creates suffering by volitional formations, which is born from our unconscious, we incriminons because we are attached to our judgment, our unconscious that judges and makes us suffer. To discriminate creates suffering, wanting to differentiate between self and other. If we are attached to our lack of appearance, or our appearance we suffer. We suffer because we are too big. We focus on the form. Only aggregate physical. we are attached to the food, the pleasure it provides, and the fact of not eating we experience suffering, we are too attache. Our absences perception creates suffering,. A blind man can suffer not see because it attaches to this lack, is a stunning listening to musique., is it this attachment to these five aggregates that makes us suffer.
October 12, 2015 @ 8:45 am
0=\552Look here,,,,!my co-worker’s step-aunt makes $79 an hour on the computer. She has been out of a job for 9 months but last month her pay was $17477 just working on the computer for a few hours.
Here’s the site to read more➜➜➜➜➜➜► See More