HE the Minister of Culture, Art and Heritage Dr Hamad bin Abdul Aziz al-Kuwari and others guests being greeted by children on their arrival at the Doha Exhibitions Centre for the opening of the 24th Doha International Book Fair yesterday. PICTURE: Thajuddin
By Ramesh Mathew
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The 24th edition of the Doha International Book Fair got under way at Doha Exhibitions Centre yesterday with an array of activities focused on developing reading habits among the country’s residents.
HE the Minister of Culture, Art and Heritage Dr Hamad bin Abdul Aziz al-Kuwari opened the 11-day event. A number of diplomats and senior government officials attended the inaugural ceremony.
While visiting the pavilions at the fair, HE al-Kuwari deliberated on the efforts being made by the country’s authorities to transform it into a knowledge-based economy and how events like the book fair contributed to the development of the mission.
The fair is one of the last events being held as part of the ongoing Qatar UK 2013 Year of Culture celebrations.
This year the UK is the guest of honour at the fair. As part of the celebrations, the UK pavilion at the fair, featuring some of the publishers from Britain and the British Council among others will host a number of activities and workshops for
families, children and book readers.
The book expo, as in previous years, has a large presence of the publishers from the Middle East and North African region, while a few English publishers, mainly from the UK and the US, and some of the country’s embassies have their pavilions. Among the diplomatic missions having stalls are Japan, South Korea and France.
While speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the exhibition yesterday, director of the British Council (Qatar) Martin Hope said he was quite happy at the interest being shown by the country’s citizens to acquire better English speaking, learning, reading and writing skills through their active participation in a series of language improvement programmes held at different levels, including those run by the British Council.
Hope also had a word of praise for HE the Minister of Culture, Art and Heritage for his support, enthusiasm and for the ministry’s recognition of the UK as the exhibition’s guest of honour. “Education is a key pillar of Qatar’s National Vision 2030 and the exchange of knowledge and ideas between British publishers and writers and their Qatari counterparts furthers the purpose of the Year of Culture by strengthening ties for years to come.”
The British Council director also said a host of events would be held at the UK Qatar 2013 pavilion, involving writers, publishers and British Council officials.
As part of the fair, the British Council and Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, in partnership with the British Centre for Literary Translation, will host The Literary Translation Summit. According to British Council officials the summit will bring together 36 writers and translators for an intensive week of literary translation workshops and panel discussions.
Two workshops will focus on translations from English to Arabic, and a third will focus on Arabic to English.
In a statement issued yesterday, British Ambassador Nicholas Hopton said the book fair offered the British publishers and writers an opportunity to meet their Qatari counterparts and to explore opportunities for more collaborations aiming at expanding Doha’s cultural horizons.
The envoy said “both UK and Qatar share a firm belief that education and culture lie at the heart of growth and development and reading and literature are a vital element of this”.