Once you set foot in the fair grounds in Nasr City in Cairo, where the 42nd round of the Cairo International Book Fair (CIBF) is running, you feel something different than the previous years. It is obvious that thoughtful care has gone into the fair organisation this round. Clear signposts dot the place, guiding the way to the various pavilions. For the first time, an office has been allocated to answer visitors’ queries about any book; where it can be found and at what price it sells. This, doubtless, saves time and effort when searching for a specific book, especially that this round is witnessing the participation of some 800 publishers from all over the world.
Shuttle buses are on hand to move visitors, free of charge, across the sprawling fairground hosting the event which began on 28 January and runs till next Saturday.
Guest of honour
The administration of the CIBF has this year allocated a separate hall for the publishers of Christian material, in a vicinity removed from that of the publishers of Islamic religious material. This is a commendable move since, during previous rounds, the Christian-related publishing houses used to be grouped with the Islamic-related ones, a situation which gave rise to not-a few skirmishes and idle arguments.
With Russia as this year’s guest of honour, several seminars were held to tackle Russian literature and culture. Among them was “Selections from contemporary Russian literature”, “The literary heritage of the Russian short-story writer Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)”, as well as one which hosted the distinguished writer of science fiction Sergey Lukyanenko.
As this year marks 50 years since the start of construction of the Aswan High Dam, by far the largest joint project between Egypt and Russia, a photography exhibition on the work in the High Dam was held. The photos displayed were a delightful collection depicting the depth of the cooperation between the Egyptians and the Russians during the work, as well as the stunning engineering feat that it was.
Higher prices
The fair’s famous cultural tradition of holding seminars to discuss various contemporary issues this year focused on three topics: “Scientific progress and viruses, especially the AH1N1”; “The global economic crisis and its effects”; and “The Arab novel between a quantitative explosion and a qualitative flourish”.
A visit to this year’s fair is doubtless a pleasurable, if not outright exciting, experience for book lovers. The downside, however, is that the book prices are on the high side. A visit on a tight budget is definitely a frustrating experience. It broke my heart to see two nuns who were obviously on an assignment to buy books for the institution they belonged to, deploring the harsh rise in book prices. Last year’s budget, clearly, would not go a long way to buy books this year.
