Sharjah: Leading international celebrities and authors including Pakistani cricket legend Waseem Akram and award-winning Indian poet and filmmaker Gulzar will attend the 36th Sharjah International Book Fair that will be held from November 1 to 11.
The world’s third largest book fair and the region’s biggest will also have more than 200 other leading authors, poets and actors speaking and interacting with the visitors over the 11 days of the book fair.
Celebrity guests will include Syrian actor Gassan Masood, historian Peter Frankopan, writer-activist Arundhati Roy, actor R. Madhavan, journalist and author Rajdeep Sardesai, activist and writer Burhan Sonmez, novelist Ali Ghadeer and many more.
The event attracted more than two millions visitors last year. This year, the book fair will have the UK as guest of honour, ensuring a major participation from British publishers, authors and other institutions.
Among the highlights of this tie up will be the exhibition of a 7th century manuscript of the Holy Quran, believed to be among oldest surviving copies of the Islamic Holy book.
Bigger and better than ever, the 36th SIBF will be spread over an area of 18,625 square metres, 4,000 square metres bigger than its previous edition.
The SIBF will also host a professional publisher’s training programme ahead of the fair, while international library conference will be held alongside the fair.
With more than 1.5 million titles, the SIBF will host 1,800 publishers from 60 countries, including more than a dozen new countries such as Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore participating this year.
To be held at Sharjah Expo Centre, the annual fair will host 2,600 activities with dedicated sections for cultural, children, social media and cooking programmes.
