The 40th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) has earned the title of the world’s largest book fair for the first time since its inception in 1982, a major milestone for the Emirati and Arab cultural world, as well as the region’s publishing industry.
This global recognition follows the success of one of the book fair’s professional programmes – the SIBF Publishers Conference – whose 11th edition held in the emirate in the run up to the book fair surpassed every international book fair held this year, attracting the participation of 546 publishers and literary agents from 83 countries looking to network and do business with each other.
The volume of participation in the SIBF Publishers Conference has played a key role in further diversifying the type and quantity of content that publishers have brought to this leading international book fair.
Held under the theme ‘There’s always a right book’, SIBF has been leading international efforts to enable the publishing industry chart its post-pandemic recovery. It earned global recognition for organising the 39th edition successfully during the pandemic.
”The world-renowned event has proved its resilience by bringing together 1,632 publishers from 83 countries to exhibit 15 million books, which includes 1.3 million unique titles, of which 110,000 are making their SIBF debut,” Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri, Chairman of SBA, said.
“This accomplishment follows a series of recent achievements by Sharjah and SIBF. They include being accorded Guest of Honour status at several international book fairs, including Paris, Moscow, Madrid, New Delhi and São Paulo; and organising the biggest international event held during the pandemic last year,” Al Ameri added.
The 2021 edition of the cultural extravaganza, which runs from November 3 – 13, has Spain as a Guest of Honour and brings together 83 authors from 22 countries.
The SIBF agenda includes more than 1,000 activities, including 440 cultural sessions, in addition to 355 shows, performances, seminars as well as workshops for children.