Gwadar’s tenth anniversary is not a curiosity; it is a reminder that if we only measure reading by textbook purchases, we will always underestimate the world.

The three-day Gwadar Book Fair, 30 Jan–1 Feb 2026, opened with the usual ribbon-cutting and worthy speeches about “knowledge, awareness and intellectual development”.

Yeah, I know. Boring as hell. South Asia book fair speakers need to talk up reading as a pleasure activity not a chore.

Yet the sub-text for global publishing professionals is more radical: a provincial Balochi port city of 90,000 people can fill a hall for a decade-old literary festival. That single fact undercuts the lazy western trope that countries such as Pakistan have “no market” because “no one reads.”

Numbers first

Pakistan’s 220-million population is 60% under-30 and buys an estimated 15 million English-language books a year – still small, but growing 8 % annually, driven by YA fiction, romance and graphic novels. Yeah, I thought that might get your attention.

Nielsen estimates 40% of those sales happen at fairs and pop-ups, not brick-and-mortar stores.

Gwadar’s event, staged by the non-profit RCD Council, is part of that invisible ecosystem.

Pleasure, not propaganda

Every speaker in Gwadar praised “knowledge” (South Asian speakers are obsessed with the notion that a dry, unillustrated non-fiction book is the key to prosperity and happiness, bless ’em).

But the programme quietly foregrounded enjoyment: a local art academy staged the political satire Firaun; short-film screenings ran beside poetry recitals in Balochi, Urdu and English.

Research from Cambridge shows adolescents who read for fun as children score higher on verbal tests and report lower stress levels. The UK’s National Literacy Trust finds twice as many “avid” children read above expected levels than those who read only for school. In short, pleasure is not a frivolous add-on – it is the engine that powers literacy, empathy and, ultimately, sales.

South Asia publishers need to grasp that. UK and US publishers need to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk. Declines in reading for pleasure in US and UK have a common root. Education policies. But back to beautiful Pakistan.

The View From The Beach

Western houses looking for the next Hindi or Korean boom should note: Pakistan has 7,000 registered publishers, 70% outside Karachi, yet only a handful have foreign-rights staff.

Balochi and Pashto lists remain largely untranslated; English-language YA and romance are hungry for international distribution. Fairs such as Gwadar are low-cost scouting trips – cheaper than Frankfurt and far less picked-over.

Bottom line

Dismiss “peripheral” fairs and we miss the readers who will shape the next decade’s market. Gwadar’s tenth anniversary is not a curiosity; it is a reminder that if we only measure reading by textbook purchases, we will always underestimate the world.

This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsfeed.