Riyadh book fair, one of the most awaited literary carnivals of the city, was inaugurated by Minister of Culture and Information Abdul Aziz Khoja last night at the international exhibition center here in the presence of senior Saudi officials, intellectuals, in addition to a large number of publishers, scholars and writers.
Out of the 957 stalls featuring the whole range of books and online material, 100 pavilions alone are from Morocco, which is the guest country in the fair.
After launching this international book fair, Minister Khoja said “the Riyadh book fair serves as a great networking platform for publishers, writers and scholars, as well as academic institutions.” More than 300,000 titles, including several best-selling books from 31 countries, are on display in the fair this year. The fair will last for one week while the exhibition will be open for public viewing from Wednesday to Friday.
Saturday, Monday and Wednesday have been designated for school students who can visit the book fair from 10 a.m. to 12 midnight. The fair will be opened for girl students on Sunday and Tuesday next week.
The event, which falls under the aegis of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, is being organized by the MCI. IBF is the largest yearly cultural event in the Middle East. The fair aims to facilitate and promote exchange between authors, publishers, all those professionally concerned with books, and all those responsible for reading in congregation.
Khoja has named the authors, who are the winners of the MCI awards this year and received their awards at the opening ceremony.
Ten winners received their awards during the opening ceremony after having achieved the highest scientific standards, said MCI Undersecretary for Cultural Affairs, Nasser Saleh Al-Hejailan, pointing out that this comes as a result of more than 300 books written by Saudis in the areas of thought and philosophy, the arts, language, literature, economics, management and social sciences, educational and psychology, in addition to applied sciences.
He said that the books were screened by specialists examiners and arbitrators to apply scientific standards for the selection, pointing out that the scientific committees began their work more than six months ago and continued to work on sorting, inspection and evaluation.
Al-Hejailan added that each book winner will receive SR 200,000, a total amount of two million in cash prizes.
Riyadh book fair brings nearly 1,000 exhibitors
Riyadh book fair brings nearly 1,000 exhibitors
