The 32nd Kuwait Book Fair will be held from Nov 13 to 23 at the Kuwait International Fairgrounds in Mishref. The book fair will be held under the auspices of Prime Minister Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah and will be launched on Nov 13 at 10 am by the Minister of Information Sheikh Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Hamad Al-Sabah.The Kuwait Book Fair is the third largest book fair in the Middle East after Cairo and Beirut.
"The Kuwait Book Fair is important for people who are into culture and it is highly attended by Arab writers and publishers. It really is an important event for Kuwait," said Bader Al-Rifai, Secretary General of the NCCAL, during the conference. The Kuwait Book Fair is more than an exhibition as it includes other cultural events as well. "It's a cultural festival which is anticipated by intellectuals and readersevery year. Besides being a huge place for exhibiting and selling books, it is also a social gathering place for likeminded individuals," Al-Rifai added.
There will be 538 publishing houses from 23 countries participating in the fair. 477 publishing houses are privately owned while 55 are publicly owned and six publishing houses are owned by international and Arab organizations. "278 of these publishing houses are participating directly, while 260 of them are participating on behalf of other publishers. The fair will contain 11,891 book titles including 9,995 Arabic books, 713 books in other languages, 837 Arabic books for kids, and 364 books for kids in other languages," noted Sa'ad Al-Mutairi, the fair's general director.This year, there will also be additional activities at the book fair. There will be three symposiums held about the media and about books in Kuwait. In addition to this, an evening devoted to poem recitals will be held.
The fair will have an art exhibition portraying some art work done by 20 female Kuwaiti artists from different schools and it will also include an Arabic heritage exhibition of some original calligraphy and rare copies of the Holy Qur'an.
Source: Kuwait Times (Kuwait)
