All set for Riyadh Book Fair

RIYADH: Riyadh International Book Fair, the most awaited literary carnival in the capital that seeks to facilitate and promote exchange between authors, publishers, those professionally concerned with books and those who love reading, will be launched on Wednesday under the aegis of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman.
The annual book fair, organized by the Ministry of Culture and Information, serves as a networking platform for publishers, writers, scholars and academic institutions and is considered one of the largest cultural events in the Middle East.
The book fair, to be held at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center (RICEC) from March 9 to 19, will feature hundreds of national and international publishing houses, distributors and retail booksellers and facilitate exchanges between professionals whose jobs depend on books, reading and publishers, said the organizers.
Commenting on preparations, Saud Al-Hazmi, general supervisor for the book fair and exhibition, said that all preparations for the international cultural event have been completed.
The accompanying exhibition at the book fair last year accommodated more than 300,000 titles, including several best-selling books from about 1,000 publishing houses from more than 30 countries, represented by 400 exhibitors from within the Kingdom and more than 1,000 foreign exhibitors.
The exhibition puts on display a large number of books on Islam, Arab culture, history, medicine, law, science and technology, mass media and communications, in addition to biographical accounts, fiction and novels available in popular languages including Arabic, English, French, Turkish, Urdu and Spanish.