Over 2.23m visited Sharjah International Book Fair

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Large number of book lovers attending the Sharjah International Book Fair.-Photo by Neeraj Murali/Khaleej Times

Sharjah - The 37th edition of the SIBF was home to 1,874 publishers from 77 countries, offering 20 million books.

By Staff Reporter

Published: Sun 11 Nov 2018, 6:00 PM

Last updated: Sun 11 Nov 2018, 8:49 PM

Over 2.23 million people visited the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) that ended on Saturday after 11 days of literary adventures. Of these, 230,000 were students.
The SIBF, the world's third largest book and publication industry event, set social media on fire, with 2.7 billion impressions: 1.51 billion on Twitter; 1.01 billion on Facebook and 219.2 million on Instagram. This is more than double the impressions that were recorded last year (1.3 billion).
SIBF's hashtag #SIBF18 reached 300 million users, with 70,000 official social media posts. Organisers are calling this spike in online activity a "massive feat".
Held under the patronage of His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, the 11-day book fair hosted Japan as the guest of honour. Azzedine Mihoubi, Algeria's Minister of Culture, was named the edition's Cultural Personality of the Year.
Ahmed Al Ameri, Chairman of the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA), said: "With each successive edition of the fair, we see a substantial increase in volume and quality of titles. This speaks volumes about the success of Sharjah's cultural movement, led by Dr Sheikh Sultan.
"In view of the rapid penetration of technology and communications tools, we need to preserve and promote the values of tolerance, love and humanity, which books and cultural exchange can do beautifully."

Events galore

The 37^th edition of the SIBF was home to 1,874 publishers from 77 countries, offering 20 million books. The event hosted 1.6 million individual titles, of which 80,000 were seen at the fair for the first time. It also entertained people with a line-up of 1,800 events, featuring 472 presenters and guests who flew in from around the world. Al Ameri said: "This year, the SIBF hosted a whopping 200 book signing ceremonies."
During the book fair's final weekend, organisers extended the working hours until midnight to accommodate the large number of visitors.

Translation rights

The three-day SIBF Publishers Conference engaged 486 publishers, who held 3,000 'matchmaking meetings', resulting in the signing of 2,884 translation rights agreements. Submission deadline for the SIBF Translation Grant is until February 26, 2019.
dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com