Stage set for 28th Doha International Book Fair

The 28th Doha International Book Fair is set to open on Wednesday at Doha Exhibition and Convention Centre under the patronage of His Highness the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani.
The activities of this edition of the Doha International Book Fair will conclude on December 5. HE the Minister of Culture and Sports Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali pointed out yesterday at a press conference that this year the event will be only for one week, shorter than the previous editions.
“The Ministry of Culture and Sports saw that it should make the duration of the fair shorter as an experiment to be assessed,” al-Ali said, pointing out that such events are run in advanced countries for only three to five days.
He said that the guest of honour this year is Germany while Turkey and China will have distinguished participation. The motto of this year’s edition is “Towards an informed society”.
He pointed out that there have been a number of attempts to create obstacles for holding this edition’s the fair but all eventually failed.
“With every crisis, there is always an opportunity to discover and communicate with new publishing houses that have always wanted to reach out to Qatar and display their products in the country. This has opened for us new horizons of knowledge and new intellectual platforms,” he said.
He said that this edition of the fair will give children more focus, which will allow them to explore the world of knowledge in an attractive way.
Ibrahim al-Syed, director of Doha International Book Fair, said that the participating number of publishing house include 82 for children’s books, 26 foreign establishments, 241 Arabic, and 24 others through representatives. The number of already booked stalls at fair amounted to 760. The pavilion of the Ministry of Culture and Sports will also include a collection of the books issued by the department of research and culture studies at the Ministry. Besides, around 93 local government, companies, and various entities are taking part at the event.
This year’s edition includes around 18,185 titles with 15,423 in Arabic and 2,762 in other foreign languages. These are all included in the printed guidebook of the fair, while the e-guide of the fair includes 76,754 titles, with 76,084 in Arabic and 9,670 in other languages.
The Book Fair will also enjoy excellent participation from Kuwait and Oman. Al-Sayed affirmed that many publishing houses had to be put on the waiting list of the fair due to the huge demand and limited space.
Abdulrahman al-Hajiri, director of the Youth Centers Department, pointed out that the 2nd Youth Forum will be organised on the sidelines of the fair to transform the huge turnout of such a culture festivity. He said that it would organise more than 35 workshops aimed at enhancing creativity and open communication among young Qataris.
Ibrahim al-Sada, representative of the Qatari Forum of Authors, there will be an exhibition designated to the books of Qatari authors as part of the fair’s activities, in addition to discussion forums on the Russian and Chinese literature.