The 19th Taipei International Book Exhibition, which wrapped up Feb. 14, attracted a record number of 590,000 visitors, organizers said.
Taiwan’s book market is seeing steady growth, as last year’s book fair recorded 520,000 visitors, according to the Taipei Book Fair Foundation.
“TIBE is the gateway to Asia’s book rights market for publishers worldwide,” TBFF chairman Wang Jung-wen said, adding that an unprecedented number of international publishing rights deals were closed at this year’s fair.
Nelleke Geel, representative for Signatuur, an imprint of the Netherlands-based A.W. Bruna Publishers, said, “TIBE is the nucleus of the Asian book market, so it is really worthwhile investing more here in publishing rights and exchanges.”
“Of all the book exhibitions I’ve been to around the world, TIBE is the best,” said Mathilde Jablonski, publishing rights manager for the French firm Hachette Livre. “It is planned in great detail, very efficient and provides wonderful service to exhibitors.”
“TIBE is the most open book fair in Asia,” said former Frankfurt Book Fair Director Peter Weidhaas. “Publishers from mainland China should be a part of it, too,” he added.
Mainland China has yet to allow its publishing houses to take part in the book fair, according to the TBFF.
This year’s inaugural Reading Festival, boasting 100 public readings in a dozen languages and talks by renowned writers, drew thousands of bibliophiles, Wang said. In 2012 it will be expanded to include mainland Chinese writers.
“Green reading” will be the theme for the 20th TIBE next year, said Lin Wen-chi, CEO of the TBFF, “as the publishing business faces a revolution of both printing technologies and the mind.”
The six-day event featured some 856 publishers and 450 writers from 59 countries, including the Kingdom of Bhutan, which was this year’s Guest of Honor, according to the TBFF. (THN)
Write to Kwangyin Liu at kwangyin.liu@mail.gio.gov.tw