It is no accident that this year’s Book World 2007 coincided with the celebrations of the Day of Literacy and the Ukrainian Language. The fair organizers — the Ukrainian Association of Publishers and Book Distributors, the Economic Association of Book Distributors, and the Ukrainian exhibition company MEDVIN — stress that the main goal of this event was to broaden professional links between national book publishers and distributors and their foreign partners. But the most important aspect is promoting the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian books, and reading.
Edvin Zadorozhny, general director of the MEDVIN Company, said that holding a large book fair in Kyiv is beneficial for Ukrainian booksellers because the capital is attractive not only to the residents of the city and Kyiv oblast but also to people who can come here from the western, southern, and eastern regions. “Experience shows that few publishers and readers come from the east to the well-known Lviv fair. Ukrainian books should be not just national but international. Moreover, we have all the possibilities for achieving this goal. This is not the first year that we have organized everything in order to be the best,” Zadorozhny added.
Another significant event — a highlight of this year’s Kyiv International Book Fair — was the celebration of the well-known writer Oleh Olzhych’s 100th birth anniversary. “This man had a tragic destiny. He was arrested in 1944 in Lviv and executed in the Nazi concentration camps. Such personalities are important for the Ukrainian people, and Ukraine in particular,” said Leonid Finkelshtein, the chief editor of the Fakt Publishing House.
Over 200 display stands featured nearly 300 publishers and a huge variety of books, including children’s literature, schoolbooks, editions of the classics, contemporary writers, and fundamental studies of world science, scientific-popular, art, technical and specialized literature.
This year’s fair had many surprises and innovations in store for visitors. There were over 100 activities, including book launches, roundtables, seminars, meetings with authors, creative soirees, and poetry readings. A new event this year was the Books for Children Charity Day for pupils of boarding-schools in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast, whose visit to the fair was funded by the organizers. Not all the children ended up receiving books, said Inna Taliants, the representative of the charitable foundation Society of Children’s Friends. Books were given to their boarding schools as well as to the participants of various contests. “But we are now working to give each child at least one book or more.”
Three boarding schools (nearly 50 children) responded to the invitation of the organizers of Book World 2007 to attend the fair. A program featuring book launches, games, contests, concerts, and origami demonstrations was developed for the youngest visitors. A nationwide cartoon competition is being planned.
The Zeleny Pes Publishing House, headed by the Kapranov brothers, organized an action entitled “Ukraine, a Cultural Disaster Area.” The idea of the project is to provide assistance not just to Ukrainian books but to bookstores as well, in particular in the city of Kyiv. “Today we are seeing the mass closures of bookshops,” said Vitalii Kapranov. “The authorities are simply impeding book distributors and books from developing.” All those who wish to support the Ukrainian publishing industry can join this action.
Visitors to the book fair saw the displays of 30 new publishing houses, an exhibit of children’s drawings, The Day’s photo exhibit, and many other interesting things.
