For the past many years, a lot of us were literally crying for organizing a book fair in Jeddah, a city that has been known throughout its history as the city where different cultures and backgrounds intersect. Now that we have a book fair coming just round the corner, many of us are unable to hide our worries about the outcome.
After securing the royal approval for the event, Makkah Gov. Prince Khaled Al-Faisal had authorized organizing the book fair in Jeddah for the next five years.
Let us talk about the importance of a book fair or why holding of such events is necessary for the Kingdom.
Amid the challenges that we are facing within and without, we need to strike at the root of the problem. It is a battle of ideologies and education holds the key to win this battle.
Education and culture is the first line of defense we should deploy in the face of the ongoing craziness and barbarism around us. There is no better way to cultivate minds than promoting the culture of reading. The culture of reading enables people to appreciate new ideas and to tolerate and respect the other side of a debate. Therefore, organizing literary events and book fairs is a must to educate our people or for that matter any nation.
In addition, the upcoming book fair will also prove to be a great opportunity for publishers to sell books. All book lovers and men of letters are waiting for the event with bated breath. It will be a treat to see interaction of ideas about arts, poetry, literature and philosophy.
It would be great to start the day at the fair by attending a symposium to see an international literati enthralling audience and then moving on to some discussion panel before entering the world of one’s dream surrounded by books.
That is how most of us are imagining the book fair and we are hoping the organizers are sharing the same enthusiasm. I do not want to sound pessimistic but the reports that we are receiving about the fair are so far worrying.
First of all, let us discuss the location. It has been announced that the fair will be held in the events space in Obhur. For those who do not know the city very well, it is an open space just beside the coast of the Southern Obhur. Under normal circumstances, the space is used as a parking lot for families visiting the area. In other words, the place has no infrastructure whatsoever and everything needs to be built from scratch. Preparations have already started and one can notice a huge white tent erected in the area. Every time I pass by, I cannot stop wondering how such a tent can host our dream cultural fair. The organizing committee has promised symposiums, discussion panels and even stage plays; I am still unable to imagine how they are going to fit all this in that tent.
Secondly, there is the number of participating countries and publishing houses. According to the latest news, there will be 440 publishing houses from 25 countries present on the 20,000 square meter area of the fair. Not bad, but not great either.
By planning this book fair in Jeddah, we should have taken it to a new level altogether. Let us compare the Sharjah Book Fair to be held by the end of this week with our planned event. The fair in Sharjah will be held in an international expo center with tens of cultural events for a long list of guests coming from all over the world. There will be 59 participating countries, 1,256 publishing houses and around 1.5 million titles expected in the fair.
I might be unfair to Jeddah comparing its fair to Sharjah’s, which according to some is the third largest book fair in the world. But I see no harm in dreaming big; benchmarking your efforts with those ahead of you is far more practical.
In all cases, it is still a dream that is about to come true for Jeddawis and we hope for a nice surprise.
