Francesco Brioschi, Ponte and IsMEO – the Institute for the Middle and Far East are among the Italian publishers attending the virtual fair.

Some officials of the Belgrade International Book Fair and several Serbian publishing houses, including Laguna Publishing, Kreativni Centar, Cigoja Stampa and Utopia, are also attending the fair. 

Iran was the guest of honor at the Belgrade International Book Fair in 2016.

In addition, the virtual edition of the Tehran Book Fair, which opened last Tuesday, has organized 17 international webinars on various cultural topics.

Iranian cultural attaché Mehdi Shirazi, Srdan Markovic from the Serbian Publishing House Utopia and translator Aleksandar Dragovic are among the experts participating in the webinars to discuss Iranian books and the Persian translation of books in Serbia. 

Dragovic is the translator of a selection from Iranian children’s book writer Hushang Moradi Kermani’s bestseller “The Stories of Majid”, which was unveiled at the 64th Belgrade International Book Fair in 2019.

The Persian language in Europe was discussed in the first webinar of the fair on Wednesday. A number of Iranian and Turkish publishers held a session on the translation of children’s books. The topic was also scrutinized in a webinar by Iranian and Arab publishing houses.

On Thursday, the Persian language in the Indian Peninsula was discussed in addition to the translation and publication of resistance and Islamic revolution literature in a session attended by Iranian and Arab publishers. A Spanish translation of the book “Roots of the Islamic Revolution” was also reviewed.

On Saturday, the partnership potential of Istanbul with the printing industry in Iran and the Persian language in Arab countries will be discussed in two separate webinars. The Translation and Publication Grant Program of Iran and similar programs in Turkey and Serbia will be reviewed in a session.

The Persian language in the Caucasus and Central Asian countries will be scrutinized in a webinar on Sunday. A webinar will also pay tribute to Afghan writer Mohammad-Azam Rahnavard-Zaryab, who died of COVID-19 in 2020. The expansion of relations between Iranian and Afghan publishers will be studied in another session.

A virtual meeting of the representatives of the literary agencies in Iran, Turkey and Germany will be held on the last day of the book fair on Monday. 

Chinese and Iranian publishers will also discuss plans to expand relations in a session. 

The 33rd edition of Iran’s most important cultural event was scheduled to be held in April 2020, and Turkey was slated to be the guest of honor, however, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance canceled the fair due to a massive rise in the death toll from coronavirus in the country.

Finally, the ministry and the Iran Book and Literature House, the main organizers of the book fair, decided to run the event online.  

The virtual fair, which will run for six days, can be found through tehranbookfair.ir.

Source:Tehran Times