15th Amman Int’l Book Fair opens Wednesday

AMMAN — The 15th Amman International Book Fair opens this Wednesday with the participation of over 500 local, regional and international publishing houses from 25 countries.

Organised by the Jordanian Publishers Union (JPU), the previously biennial book fair will become an annual event in order to boost the culture of reading in Jordan and the region, the fair’s director, Hassan Saleh, said Sunday. 

“The Amman International Book Fair seeks to turn Jordan into a regional cultural hub for books and the publishing industry,” he told reporters, adding that board members of the Arab Publishers Union are going to meet on the sidelines of the event, although they usually meet in Lebanon or Egypt.

This year’s book fair, titled “Gaza: resistance and glory”, can be considered a cultural festival since it includes several cultural events and activities for children and adults, Saleh noted at a press conference. 

The book fair will showcase more than 1 million copies of over 100,000 titles in several fields in English, Arabic and French, and also feature lectures on the war on Gaza, intellectual property rights and feminist literature, in addition to storytelling activities and puppet shows for children.

In order to provide books at affordable prices, the JPU required all participating publishing houses to offer visitors discounts that start at 25 per cent of the original book prices, according to Saleh, who is president of the JPU.

He noted that the event, which is held in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, costs over JD200,000, calling on local public and private institutions to take part in supporting the book fair’s coming iterations.  

Saleh urged educational institutions, universities and schools to benefit from the publications at the book fair and to promote the culture of reading among students.

The event will also feature electronic publications and enable visitors to communicate with authors and thinkers through daily book signing events, according to JPU Vice President Wael Abed Rabbo.

Several local authors will participate in the cultural festival, such as novelist and poet Ayman Otoum, writer and journalist Samiha Khrais, novelist and playwright Hashem Gharaibeh, satirist and Al Rai columnist Ahmed Hassan Al Zoubi, and author and poet Ibrahim Nasrallah.

The book fair also features Arab authors and thinkers including Kuwaiti novelist Saud Sanousi, former editor-in-chief of the London-based newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi Abdel Bari Atwan and Algerian novelist Waciny Laredj, Abed Rabbo added.

The book fair, which concludes on September 13, will be held in Amman’s Al Hussein Youth City from 9am until 2 pm and from 4:30pm until 10pm daily.