No, no stone tablets and cuneiform. This is modern day Mesopotamia.
Running December 16-24, the Amed Book Fair, a.k.a. the Mesopotamia Book Fair in Turkish Kurdistan, is seeing high visitor numbers, although no indication what sort of numbers we might be talking about.
200 publishing houses are taking part, at the first edition of the fair in four years.
ANF News interviewed some of the publishers:
Azad Zal (J&J publishing house): “These people really need books and knowledge as much as they need water and bread. In order to respond to the Kurdish people, as writers, we need to publish and distribute much better, higher quality books. There is a distribution problem in Turkey. Through fairs, readers can access books more easily. We will do our best to ensure this access.“
Berfo Bari (Na publications): “We were longing for the fair in Amed. As a native of Amed, I am very happy to be here. We have high expectations from the fair, especially Kurdish publishing houses publishing in Kurdish are experiencing difficulties in terms of the market. I think the fair will have a great impact on the revival of this market.”
More quotes and fair information at ANFNews.
