In February, the long-silent International Book Fair finally buzzed with activity and returned offline.
The 53rd Cairo International Book Fair, which lasted for two weeks, concluded on Feb 7th. The theme of this year's fair was \"Egypt's Identity---Culture amp; the Question of the Future\", and more than 1,000 publishers from 51 countries and regions participated.
This year's book fair ran several lectures and academic seminars around ancient Egyptian civilization, modern literature, and cultural exchanges. The book fair adopted a number of cutting-edge technologies and artificial intelligence, and children were able to read fairy tales through holographic glasses and enjoy an immersive reading experience. The book fair also launched a digital book project related to ancient Egyptian civilization, and readers were able to order some of the books presented at the book fair online through the digital platform. According to the organizers, the book fair's retail and wholesale volume of books exceeded those of last year.
In addition, this year's Bologna Children's Book Fair and London Book Fair have also officially announced their opening dates. The Bologna Children's Book Fair will be held from March 21 to 24, at which strict pandemic prevention and control measures will be taken, such as temperature measurement, mandatory wearing of masks, and ensuring vaccination of the attendants.
The London Book Fair will be held from April 5 to 7, and the professional conference portion of the fair will be reduced to 120 sessions compared to 210 sessions in 2019. The Book Fair will have a main stage with themed events while online streaming events will also be held in real time. On-demand audio service will also be available for these events, allowing those in the book industry who cannot attend to obtain more professional information from recorded files.