A number of publishers participating in the Beirut Arab International Book Fair, whose 66th session opened, noted that political literature has a prominent presence in this version of the Lebanese cultural event, and that the readers’ interest has become more tending to this kind after the request was focused on the novel and poetry.
The number of publishing houses participating in the exhibition will continue to rise, compared to recent years since the start of the economic crisis in Lebanon and the Korona pandemic, according to the organizers.
The head of the Arab Cultural Club, which has been organizing the exhibition since 1956, Salwa Al -Siniora Bahamiri, confirmed that among the 1334 publishing houses participating in this session that extends to May 25 this year, several Arab parties, from Qatar, the Emirates, Egypt, Jordan and Syria, and the Arab World Institute in Paris, along with the local presence.
In her statement to the French Press Agency – she explained that the reluctance of Arab publishing houses from participating in recent courses was “for security reasons, as the circumstances in Lebanon were even immense in the near presence,” but “everyone now feels that there is a different climate.”
“We cut (from participation) for years, but the formation of the new government was a motive for us to return strongly,” said the Egyptian director of the Egyptian Al -Shorouk House.
And I expected to “the Arab presence in the next session” and to be “thick”.
“Beirut will not give up culture”
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam stressed, at the opening of the 66th session, on Wednesday, that “Beirut has not and will not be tired of carrying the banner of culture despite all the wounds.”
Salam, who is known for his passion for reading, said about him, the corporal of the media ceremony, Zafin Qiyumjian, said that “his house is an exhibition of a book”, that the exhibition is “a firm tradition that reflects Beirut’s cultural pulse, its intellectual heritage and its historical role as an ancient capital of knowledge and creativity.”
In the “An -Nahar” pavilion, which presented its new books, the most prominent of which was written about the relations between Beirut and Tehran and the Lebanese political affairs, the administrative director of the ancient house, Carla Qarqafi, said, “We love the opponents, because there is an interaction with the reader, we do not care about the profits that we earn, but we would like to preserve this interaction.”
Fatima Al -Rayes, responsible for “Riad Al -Rayes”, noted that “the reader was interested for years of novel and poetry, but today he is tending to books that present intellectual and political topics.”
Political literature constitutes 80% of the publications of the “Saturday of the Mashreq”, which was witnessing, for example, on the opening day, the signing of a book by the researcher, Mohamed Abdel Jalil Ghazel, which deals with “the role of the Prime Minister in building the national identity and leading political and economic reforms”, as he explained.
Among the publications in the exhibition is a book on the founder of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, Imam Musa al -Sadr, who, before his disappearance in 1978, was one of the most prominent Shiite figures in Lebanon, and his sister and head of the Foundation bearing his name Rabab al -Sadr said that the book deals with the issue of the sit -in held by Imam al -Sadr in one of the mosques in 1975 to call for the endowment of the civil war.
And the professor of law and writer Nada Shawall said that “the Arab book fair is affected more than others by political and sociological issues and interacts more with the events.”
Shawoul participates in a discussion administration on the “Lebanese Symposium” Foundation, which between 1946 and 1984 “” an educational role in an era in the bright history of Lebanon, “according to Baghiri, which is one of about 60 similar activities during the exhibition.
Baghiri indicated that one of the most prominent seminars is one on the theater, and another on the late writer Elias Khoury, and others, for example, about the centenary of the writer of the Lebanese Suleiman Al -Bustani, known for his translation “Iliad”, and on the writer, historian and rhetoric Amin al -Rihani on the centenary of his book “The Kings of the Arabs”, in addition to one about the singer Umm Kulthum.
An open space for book arts
One of the seminars revolves around the Imam of Beirut and the rest of the Levant, Abd al -Rahman al -Awza’i, on the 1250th anniversary of his death, “because of the religious tolerance and reformist approach that was known.”
These seminars are part of the exhibition, according to Baghiri, that “it is not limited to being a platform for the book, but also an open space for the art of the book and what is going on in his orbit”, according to what she explained in her opening speech.
She pointed out in her statement that what distinguishes this version “focus on the specialized art galleries” that number to six, one of which sheds light on the “role of the city of Tripoli’s cultural and knowledge city”, and deals with the last development of cinema in Lebanon through posters, and restores the third exhibition stations itself since its inception, in addition to another about cartoons related to Gaza.
Because “the multi -faceted culture, which is the art, music, writing, writing and poetry,” according to the saying of a hurry, the exhibition has given its program with a number of concerts, one of which is performed by the French -Lebanese pianist Abd al -Rahman al -Basha on the occasion of a hundred years since the birth of his father, music author Tawfiq Al -Basha.