Under the patronage of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the 30th edition of Doha International Book Fair (DIBF) will be held from January 9 to 18, 2020.
The exhibition is considered one of the most important and largest international cultural events in the country.
The new edition of DIBF will be held under the supervision of the Qatar Cultural and Heritage Event Center. The center is keen to utilise all its potentials to ensure the success of the upcoming edition of the exhibition.
The date will coincide with the launch of the Qatar-France Year of Culture 2020, which will give a greater chance for a significant presence of French participants in the fair and its diverse cultural presence and also to promote mutual understanding, recognition and appreciation between both sovereign nations reaffirming the deep bonds that exist between Qatar and France.
The Ministry of Culture and Sports will organise a press conference next week to announce the details of the fair such as the number of countries which will participate in the event, foreign publishers, titles in Arabic and titles in other foreign languages, publishing houses and the number of booked stalls at the fair.
The Ministry encouraged the various sectors of society, especially those interested in reading and obtaining knowledge, to visit the book fair which is also an annual forum for writers, publishers and distributors, intellectuals, students and friends of books from all walks of life.
To give exhibitors a great opportunity to experience a distinctive cultural experience, the fair will last for 10 days, which will also allow publishers to showcase their diverse publications.
The previous edition of the Doha International Book Fair witnessed a large participation of Arab and foreign publishers, with 427 official publishers participating in the exhibition, and was held on an area spanning over 29,000 square meters.
The participating number of publishing houses in last fair included 287 Arabic books publishers, 68 for children’s books, 17 educational publishers, and the number of publishing houses participated in foreign books had reached 25 publishing houses. The number of booked stalls at the last edition of the fair amounted to 791 stalls.
The fair also included around 101 ,992 titles in Arabic and 17, 261 titles in other foreign languages, which had brought the total Arab and foreign languages titles to 119, 253.
Many ministries and government institutions like the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs; the Ministry of Education and Higher Education; Qatar University are expected to participate in this edition.