And feeding that narrative will be the history and legend of Sharjah itself.

The second Sharjah Literature Festival will kick off 5–11 January 2026 at University City Hall Square, offering a curated marketplace for 42 Emirati publishing houses to showcase children’s, YA, and adult titles.

Organised by the Emirates Publishers Association (EPA) and Sharjah Book Authority under the theme “A Community Woven by Tales”, the event positions literature as a driver of the UAE’s creative economy.

Strategic Context: Sharjah’s Publishing Ecosystem


This festival operates within Sharjah’s established infrastructure as a global publishing hub. The recent 44th Sharjah International Book Fair attracted 1.4 million visitors from 206 countries and hosted 2,350 publishing houses, cementing its role as the world’s largest venue for rights exchange for five consecutive years, as well as one of the world’s biggest public-facing literary events.

The EPA, founded in 2009 by Bodour Al Qasimi, represents Emirati publishers regionally and internationally, actively fostering export capacity.


Market Growth and Export Challenge

The UAE publishing industry is projected to grow 12% annually to 2030, driven by near-universal literacy and demand for culturally relevant Arabic content.

However, exports remain modest, highlighting an historically insular market orientation now being addressed. International awareness of UAE publishing, again, remains historically limited, and here I’m reminded of the early days of TNPS when posts about Sharjah, the UAE and the Arab book markets met with a collective shrug of indifference.


The View From The Beach

Today, as the centre of publishing gravity has shifted inexorably east from NY/London/Frankfurt to London/Frankfurt/Bologna/Sharjah, the eastward transition will likely continue.

For Sharjah and the wider UAE, supporting the emerging book markets while engaging with the mature markets positions the Emirates to broker truly global expansion of the publishing industry as this decade unfolds.

And feeding that narrative will be the history and legend of Sharjah itself – the mortgaged dagger to buy books, and the Arab princess of a country that did not exist sixty years ago, that became International Publishers Association – IPA president and now champions publishers in countries many westerners have never heard of.

If you doubt that, consider that, barely will the Sharjah Literature Festival have had time to pack up than the Sharjah Festival of African Literature returns, 14-18 January.

Stay tuned to TNPS for reportage on both events as we head into 2026.

This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsletter.