Istanbul TÜYAP book fair kicks off

The book fair is organized by TÜYAP Fair and Exhibition Organization and will be held at the TÜYAP Fair and Convention Center in Büyükçekmece with the participation of more than 600 publishers and NGOs. Twenty-five publishers from Egypt will exhibit thousands of titles in Arabic, Turkish and English. About 500,000 visitors are expected to visit the book fair this year.

On Nov. 12 in TÜYAP Fair and Convention Center, the Turkish Minister of Culture Ertuğrul Günay and the Egyptian Minister of Culture Dr. Emad Abou-Ghazi will preside over the opening ceremony along with Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

A series of Egyptian cultural activities and events will take place at TÜYAP Fair and Convention Center during the fair. They cover a variety of subjects from cinema to literature and history.

The events will include seminars and panel discussions with visiting guest writers from Egypt Gamal Ghitani, Mohammed Salmawy, Ibrahim Aslan and Mai Khaled and poetry readings by poet Ahmed El Shahawy. A panel discussion will be held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Naguib Mahfouz, the only Nobel Laureate in Literature from the Arab world.

In addition, selected movies from the Egyptian cinema will be screened with Turkish subtitles as part of the Egyptian Cinema Days: “Yacoubian Building,” “A Beginning and an End,” “Al kit-kat” and “Scheherazade Tell Me a Story.” Three Egyptian movies with English subtitles will be screened: “Al-maseer” (Destiny), “Al-Arad” (The Land) and “One-Zero.”

The Nile folkloric Music and Dance Troupe will perform on opening day. The troupe will perform popular music from Upper Egypt and the Delta region.

A photography exhibition of around 80 photos about the Tahrir Square Egyptian revolution that began Jan. 25 will also be on display during the same period. The exhibition is designed to reflect different stages of the revolution in the form of a tour through the time span of the revolution.

The fair will also include a panel discussion on translation and the history of Egyptian-Turkish relations, a seminar about cooperation between publishers and book fairs in both countries and a speech by the director-general of Cairo Book Fair.

The Egyptian Ambassador in Ankara Abderahman Salaheldin expressed his hopes that the Egyptian participation in the book fair will help increase the cultural cooperation between Egypt and Turkey.

Salaheldin referred to the growing interest on both sides to learn about the culture of the other. “Language has been a major barrier, and we are hoping to give a boost to translation from Turkish into Arabic and vice versa to attain better understanding between the people of these two intertwined cultures. Reading each others’ books and enjoying each others’ movies and music would make us further recognize how close Egyptians and Turks are,” Salaheldin said.