Somali authors participate Cairo International Book Fair for the second year

Authors from Somalia are participating the 47th annual Cairo International Book Fair (CIBF) started  the 27th of January at the Cairo International Convention Center in Nasr City.

Mohamed Ahmed Shiil, who is attending the book fair said that 18 people from Somalia were invited to attend the event.

“This is the second year that authors Somalia taking part the book fair, this time round we are 18 in number which is larger number when compared to that one of last year” said Shiil.

The CIBF is the Middle East’s biggest and oldest book festival has attracted an estimated 2,000,000 visitors from.

The countries participating in the fair include 21 Arab states and 13 non-Arab countries, with 550 publisher from Egypt, 250 from the Arab world, and 50 foreign publishers, in addition to 118 kiosks for used books.

There are six more countries participating this year than the second largest edition of the fair.

The list of countries, distributed to journalists by mail, includes the United Arab Emirates and Abu-Dhabi as two separate countries, even though Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the UAE. The American University in Cairo is also listed as a country in the foreign countries section.

Turkey will not participate in the fair this year for the first time in decades, which reflects the escalating political tension between Cairo and Ankara.

The list includes Kuwait, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Oman, Palestine, Jordan, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Qatar, Eritrea and the guest of honour Bahrain.

The non-Arab countries include Italy, Russia, India, Germany, France, Paraguay, Greece, China and the Czech Republic.

The head of the General Egyptian Book Organisation (GEBO) Haitham El-Hajj said that he is holding to the stance of Egyptian intellectuals of rejecting any Israeli participation in the fair, or any kind of cultural relations with the neighbouring country.

The head of the GEBO, who assumed the post less than six months ago, said he will comply with any court ruling concerning books by Muslim Brotherhood authors.

Last year, books by Sheikh Youssef El-Qaradawi, who is currently living in Qatar and is a strong supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, sparked controversy and were removed from display at the Dar El-Shorouk wing the fair, along with books by the late radical Islamist author Sayed Qutb.

This year’s guests will include Chinese novelist Leo Gen Yun, Egyptian thinker Hassan Hanafi, Lebanese writer George Corm, Moroccan writer Hassan Orid, Tunisian Arabic Booker winning novelist Shoukry El-Mabkhout, among many others who will participate in a very busy cultural agenda.

The fair will be open daily from 10am till 7pm for book selling, and until 9pm for cultural events as it will be concluded 1oth February.