Book Fairs in the Gulf: How Sharjah positions itself as the reading emirate of the UAE Premium

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Dragons may be legendary, but they are not passe for the children and adults who visited Sharjah and its much-loved book fair this year, interacting with and tailing the animal personas through the corridors and halls of Expo Centre Sharjah.

The curtain has fallen on the 42nd edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF), held under the theme “We Speak Books”, which attracted to its venue an estimated 1.2 million visitors, from 109 countries. This is no ordinary book fair where only bibliophiles go. It is a 12-day carnival of sorts for residents and international visitors alike – children’s workshops, panel discussions, celebrity visits, food trucks, cookery shows, roaming theatre and its performers, police academy band music, special cultural programmes from the country that is Guest of Honour, and many more. The best part is that every programme on offer is free of cost.

The previous edition in November 2022 had attracted 2.17 million people from 112 countries; over 1.3 million titles and 1500 activities had seen all roads leading to Sharjah chock-a-block with traffic. However, with the Israel-Gaza war casting a pall of gloom in the Arab world, festivities remained muted this year. 

Occupying centrestage at the venue was an exquisite collection of books, manuscripts, maps and other sea-faring equipment from Portuguese expedition through Arabia in the 16th and 17th centuries. Organised in conjunction with the University of Coimbra, Portugal, the exhibition retraced the Portuguese presence in the Gulf, and the region’s importance as a trading post and halt en route to India.

If the presence of the reigning don of Indian cinema Shah Rukh Khan had caused a stir and a houseful attendance in 2022, this year it was Bollywood’s Kareena Kapoor, Kajol and Neena Gupta who brought fans, eager to hear their tuppence worth on books and life, in large numbers to the venue.

But it is not the filmstars alone who add value to the cultural extravaganza organised by the Sharjah Book Authority. Literary giants from the international and Arab worlds – the likes of Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, prolific Libyan-born novelist Ibrahim Al-Koni, Swedish behavioural expert Thomas Erikson, Canadian journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell – and renowned astronauts Sunita Williams and Hazza al Mansouri (UAE’s first man in space), and comedian Bassem Youssef headlined SIBF 2023 enriching it with their perspectives and experiences and offering the fascinated audience valuable insights into the future. 

The presence of a large expatriate community from the State of Kerala in India has meant book launches, seminars and a near-exclusive hall dedicated for works in their native Malayalam language. According to Sanjay Jesudas, Sales Manager at DC Books Dubai, an Indian publisher and retailer that established its presence in the UAE in 2008 with the Sharjah book fair, the company does roaring business during the annual fair. “We had nine stalls at the book fair, which included exclusive stalls for Indian titles and Malayalam books, apart from international books. We always have good sales at the book fair, including library purchases by schools.” Anbuselvi Manoharan, a sales executive at Jashanmal Books, noted that the book authority’s generous gift of vouchers to school students encouraged many budding readers to stock their personal libraries with the latest releases.