Dubai: His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has congratulated His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, on Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) becoming the world’s largest book fair in terms of the buying and selling of copyrights in 2021.
On his Twitter account, Sheikh Mohammed on Sunday lauded the achievement and praised Dr Sheikh Sultan, describing him as his brother who is a man of Arab and international culture.
15 million books on sale
The 40th edition of SIBF is being held at Expo Centre Sharjah from November 3 to 13.
The event is 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.
Earlier, on Friday, the Sharjah Book Authority (SBA) had announced that the 40th edition of SIBF has become the world’s largest book fair. SIBF has earned the title of the world’s largest book fair for the first time since its inception in 1982.
Push from publishers conference
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 lead-up to the book fair surpassed every international book fair held this year to attract the participation of 546 publishers and literary agents from 83 countries looking to do business with each other.
More than books
The 2021 edition of SIBF celebrates 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.
