Whatever the future holds for the fossil fuel economies, Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich nations all understand they need to diversify, that cultural sectors like publishing can be both lucrative and rewarding
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The festival programme features a diverse array of events themed around literature, children’s literature, history and heritage, essay literature, the Arabic language, science fiction and fantasy, autobiography, thought, and miscellaneous events.
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The festival included a comprehensive programme for children, reinforcing a read for pleasure mindset that we in the west, and especially in the UK and US, seem to have lost sight of, as witness the disturbing fall in the number of kids that read for pleasure both sides of the Atlantic.
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Fewer and fewer children are reading for pleasure, in large part because the education system has failed them, but also in no small part because a TV celebrity riding on a ghostwriter’s skills and a jovial TV persona will never match the magic of a JK Rowling or an Enid Blyton, that wrote for children, not for fame and fortune.
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Among the usual highlights is a one-off event celebrating the Year of the Camel (in fact the Year of the Camelids, so alpacas , lamas and vicunas too, but guessing there aren’t too many of those on the Peninsula).
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Most of history’s civilisations rose, flourished and fell without a book in sight, and when books finally became a thing, many books were a means to oppress and deliver destruction, not to build. “Mein Kampf”, anyone?
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Kudos to Dr Mohammed Alwan for not only embracing and promoting reading for pleasure, but also embracing and promoting technology and digital solutions.
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The 170,000 visitor turnout, while impressive for a regional fair, is dwarfed by the Jeddah book fair’s typical 500,000 visitor count, while the main event of the year, the Riyadh International Book Fair, routinely attracts more than one million visitors each year.
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“Fourteen books by Arab women — written by women from across the Maghreb and Mashreq,...
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Anghami, with a catalogue of 57 million songs and 200,000 podcasts, is the first to sign up.
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Not, of course, that we in the west are in any position to assume the moral high ground, given the recent track record in the United States for banning children’s books.
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The 4th Iraq International Book Fair runs February 14 through 24 this year. Details are sparse at...
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