For twelve days this November, Sharjah will once again become one of the publishing world’s busiest crossroads. The 45th Sharjah International Book Fair opens its doors on November 4 and runs through November 15 at the Sharjah Expo Centre, drawing publishers, writers and readers from across the globe. This year, Morocco has a seat at the table: novelist Saeed Yaqtin is among the Arab authors invited to meet readers and discuss his work.
Running under the theme « Made of Stories, » the fair will bring together 2,673 exhibitors and publishing houses from 124 countries, split between 1,151 Arab publishers and 1,122 international ones. Ahmed bin Rikad Al Amiri, CEO of the Sharjah Book Authority, described the fair, held under the patronage of Sheikha Bodour bint Sultan Al Qasimi, as a 45-year-old story that has grown from a simple book market into a global gathering of readers, writers and creators.
The Sultanate of Oman is this year’s guest of honour, sending 50 participants, including 41 writers and poets such as Zahran Al Qasimi, Mohammed Al Yahyai and Mahmoud Al Rahbi. Oman’s programme includes 15 cultural sessions, six children’s workshops and roughly twenty artistic performances celebrating the country’s heritage.
Beyond the Moroccan and Omani presence, the fair’s line-up stretches across continents. German novelist Daniel Tolli will lead a workshop on building a narrative voice, while Egyptian actor Khaled El Sawy will run an Acting Studio session on stage performance. Crime fiction gets its own stage too: the fifth edition of the Crime and Thriller Festival, from November 7 to 10, brings together more than a dozen specialists from the United Kingdom, the United States and Egypt, among other countries.
The professional side of the fair is just as packed. More than 200 publishers from 17 countries will attend a training course on October 31, ahead of the 16th Publishers Conference, held from November 1 to 3, which welcomes first-time participants from Angola, Burundi, Cambodia and Niger to discuss artificial intelligence, audiobooks and copyright under the banner « Publishing in an Accelerated Age. » A separate international libraries conference, running November 7 to 9, is expected to draw more than 400 specialists.
Saeed Yaqtin’s presence on the guest list is a reminder that Moroccan literature keeps finding an audience well beyond the Kingdom’s borders, at one of the Arab world’s most closely watched cultural gatherings.
