Riyadh: There will be a strong presence of Malayalam in this year’s Riyadh International Book Fair. From the 29th of this month to the 8th of October, the fair organized by the Saudi Ministry of Culture will be attended by publishers from different corners of the world and four prominent publishers from Kerala namely DC, Haritam, Purna and Olive. The fair is from 11 am to 12 midnight every day. There will be books in Arabic, English, Malayalam and many other languages.
Tunisia is the guest country this time. There will be a wide range of cultural events, dialogue platforms, interactive lectures and workshops covering the fields of art, reading, writing, periodicals, book publishing and translation.
This is the first time that there are so many Malayalee publishers at the Riyadh Book Festival. They will have more than one stall. Also books from publishers such as Chinta and Prabhat will be available. The Mela will be full of Malayalam with books of regarding 4000 titles. Famous writers Shihabuddin Poithumkadum and N.P. Hafiz Muhammad and former minister M.K. With the arrival of Munir MLA as a guest, the Malayalam section of the fair will become literary. Marking 40 years of Shihabuddin Pothumkadav’s story writing, a book written by various people and published by Haritam Books titled ‘Weiladanja Mazhaduraman’ will be released at the fair. Apart from this, there will also be the release of new books by Malayalam writers in Riyadh.
Purna Publications team led by Managing Director Manohar arrived in Riyadh on Sunday with four days left for the book festival. Haritam Books Managing Director Pratapan Thayat and Olive Marketing Head Sandeep will reach Riyadh on Tuesday. On the 28th of this month, Shihabuddin Poithumkadam and on the 29th, M.K. Munir MLA and NP on 30 Hafiz Muhammad will also arrive. He will return home on the fourth. Poithumkadav will be in Saudi for two weeks. The DC Books team will reach Riyadh on the 28th. But Ravi will arrive on DC 27 itself. He will be in Riyadh for four days.
DC Books has planned a wide range of programs to activate the Malayalam section of the fair. DC Books has organized lucky draw competitions, drawing competitions for children and book launches in conjunction with the book fair. All books published as part of the 48th anniversary celebrations will be available at the DC Bookstall. And all the books can be acquired by the readers at a 20 percent discount.
‘Gregor Samsa’s Girlfriend’ (story collection) by Joseph Athirungal, Riyadh writers, Sabina M. Sally’s ‘Pranayame Kalahame’ (poetry collection), Nikhila Sameer’s ‘Ameya’ (poetry collection) and Khamarbanu Valiyakam’s ‘Gulmoharithals’ (poetry collection) will be released in the Malayalam section of the fair. These books will hold the history of being the first Malayalam works to be released at the Riyadh International Book Festival.
