Prague, May 10 (CTK) – The 24th BookWorld international book fair and festival, which started at the Exhibition Grounds in Prague-Holesovice on Thursday, welcomes a record number of 404 exhibitors from 22 countries, the organisers have said.
The opening was attended by Culture Minister Ilja Smid.
The fair’s main themes for 2018 are Comics and The Groundbreaking 20th Century. The latter topic will be highlighted in several discussions with writers and other personalities, most of which will be interpreted into English and Czech.
The whole programme offers 556 events, presenting 642 guests.
Part of them will as usual focus on schools, youth and parents with children.
The guest of honour at this year’s fair is Israel.
Out of Israeli writers, David Grossman, the winner of the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, Abraham B. Yehoshua and Dror Mishani will visit the fair.
The BookWorld will also present some literary prizes, such as the 31st Jiri Orten Award for young talented authors, which bears the name of the Czech Jewish poet who died in 1941 at the age of 22 years.
British translator and Czech studies scholar David Short will receive the Jiri Theiner Award from the Association of Czech Booksellers and Publishers on Friday.
The BookWorld, which ends on May 13, is held on the area of 3,495 square metres both inside and outside the Industrial Palace and in the National Museum’s Lapidarium, which houses valuable stone sculptures dating from the 11th to the 20th century, at the Exhibition Grounds.
The accompanying events will take place elsewhere in Prague, for instance, in the Gulliver “literature airship” at the DOX Centre of Contemporary Art and the Shoah Prague Memorial.
Last year, the BookWorld Prague attracted some 45,000 visitors.
More information is available on www.svetknihy.cz.
