Once a major crossroads for publishing in the Arab world, Beirut’s 67th Arab International Book Fair is back with a new configuration.

By Olivia Snaije, Contributing Editor

Just as the professional days at the Frankfurter Buchmesse wound down, the 67th Beirut Arab International Book Fair opened on October 9 and will run until October 18.

This is a historic edition for Beirut’s Arabic-language book fair, which was founded in 1956. In a beleaguered Lebanon, often divided along confessional lines, three organizations have agreed to collaborate on this year’s book fair. Beirut’s Francophone book fair, held independently for 25 years until 2018, has now joined the Arabic-language fair. And the Arab Cultural Club, which has organized the fair since it was founded, reached an entente with the Lebanese Publishers’ Association after years of disagreement, deciding to share the organization of future editions on alternating years.

“One of the first priorities of my mandate has been working to bring the three parties together,” Minister of Culture Ghassan Salamé told Publishing Perspectives, adding that it took “several months” of effort and mediation to reach an agreement. “The Publishers’ Association and the Arab Cultural Club disagreed on the venue, timing, organization, and cost, while the Institut français remained skeptical that an agreement could be reached. I am therefore very pleased that this year’s fair brings all three actors together under one roof.”

Beirut was once a major cultural and publishing capital in the Arab world, and even when the 15-year civil war ended in 1990, there still appeared to be room for two separate books fairs—Francophone and Arabic-language, held two months apart. But since 2018, amid civil unrest, massive political corruption leading to a collapsed economy, a catastrophic explosion in Beirut’s port, and, more recently, incessant attacks by Israel since 2023, the fact that the fair continues to operate is testament to the Lebanese commitment to culture and the book industry.

“Culture is not a luxury,” said Salwa Siniora Baasiri, president of the Arab Cultural Club. “Culture creates awareness and we count on it during difficult times.”

The fair is taking place in its traditional location near the port, which took two years to rebuild following the explosion in 2020.

Baasiri said that 108 panels will be held on subjects such as history, memory, poetry, heritage, politics, art, economics, and theatre. “The aim is not only to talk about the current situation, but to offer an outlet for perspectives for tomorrow. Our role is to come up with alternate solutions to the political ones.”

Baasiri stressed the importance of cultural rapprochments, and the fair’s cooperation with the Sheikh Zayed Chair at the American University of Beirut (AUB), as well as events with Beirut’s Institut français (IF) which is calling its program Beyrouth Livres, (Beirut Books) even if it is within the framework of the Beirut fair.

The IF’s Sarra Ghorbal, who heads the book office, said they were bringing 40 authors, illustrators, and artists from nine countries to Lebanon for the fair. The IF will be sharing a stand with the Institut français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo), a French research institute for social sciences and humanities, which also has a publishing arm.

Ghorbal said events will be held at the stand in partnership with Francophone bookshops, underlining that they will be held in French, English and Arabic. “The translation aspect is important for us,” she said. As part of their program, the IF invited two Francophone publishers, En toutes lettres, from Morocco, and Éditions Elyzad, based in Tunisia and France.

Baasiri is conscious of the difficult timing of the fair for Arab publishers who attended the Frankfurter Buchmesse. Nonetheless, 23 Arab publishers from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia have joined 140 Lebanese publishers, she said, adding that in 2027 the plan is to move the Beirut fair back to its traditional date in December.

Dar Al Adab, one of Lebanon’s most prestigious publishers is celebrating its 70th birthday this year and will play a special role at the fair, participating in eight panels related to the publishing house and bringing at least six authors from the Arab world to Beirut. One of the panels will be held at the French stand with Dar Al Adab’s director Rana Idriss and Arabic to French translator Stéphanie Dujols, who will discuss the Palestinian prison memoir, The Tale of a Wall, by Nasser Abu Srour, published by Dar Al Adab in 2022. Dujols’ French translation, published by Gallimard as Je suis ma liberté won several prizes including the 2025 Prix de la littérature arabe.

Founded in 1956 by the left-wing intellectual and writer Souheil Idriss, Dar Al Adab was initially a magazine that was a springboard for many contemporary authors who became leading figures in Arabic literature. Idriss’ daughter Rana said that during this time of destruction in Lebanon and Palestine she hesitates to say Dar Al Adab’s presence at the fair is a celebration—she prefers to simply call it an anniversary.

“Even if it’s not like before, Beirut is still the place where the most important books are being published,” she said. “Our authors are from all over the Arab world. It’s the lifeblood of Arab publishing.”

Idriss is referring to the role Lebanon has played in publishing books by Arab authors that would be banned in their own countries.

Lebanon has had its share of political problems, but dictatorship has not been one of them. Beginning with classics such as Season of Migration to the North by the Sudanese Tayib Saleh or Children of the Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, authors from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria, and numerous other Arab countries have all published their books in Beirut (and many with Dar Al Adab) in order to escape censorship.

Academic and anthropologist Franck Mermier who specializes in the Arab world and published a book examining Beirut’s publishing industry and the Arab publishing landscape as a whole, said that this edition of the fair “will be a breath of fresh air for Lebanon’s book sector.”

Mermier said that in addition to the “destruction caused by Israeli bombardments, particularly in the southern suburbs where warehouses and publishing houses are located,” a collapsed economy, the rising cost of production, and the obstacles to exporting printed material means that the international dimension to the book fair is particularly important.

That various organizations are finally working together on this year’s fair is capital for the industry’s export business. Lebanon’s publishing industry has always been outsized compared to the country’s size, with a population of approximately 6 million people.

“Our domestic market is small. Publishers need access to a wider regional market, where competition is intense,” Salamé said, adding that bringing the publishing sector together is a “prerequisite” for Lebanon to reclaim its role as a leading publishing hub in the region. “The Ministry has a role to play, of course, but the publishing community itself must also work together.”

The Lebanese publishing industry certainly has an important ally with the Minister of Culture. Salamé, a former UN diplomat with one of his Ph.Ds in Literature and a number of published books, is also helping Lebanese publishers reach readers abroad, by working to support their participation in book fairs across the region, where the readership is larger.

“The Arab book market has become more fragmented in recent years, partly because of censorship imposed by some governments and the emergence of publishers in countries with greater financial resources, including Gulf countries,” Salamé said. “We therefore often work through Arab embassies to help ensure Lebanese publishers can take part in these fairs rather than be excluded.”

Locally, Salamé said, like everywhere, encouraging children to read is essential. He is also working on strengthening public libraries outside the main urban centers and launched a project with UNESCO with the first phase helping 15 libraries.

Another serious issue that affects the entire Arab world is piracy and protecting authors’ intellectual property, which Salamé admits is a serious challenge. “We are working to raise awareness within the Lebanese judiciary of the importance of protecting intellectual property and the need to act on this issue,” he said.

Meanwhile, at the newly configured fair, schoolchildren mill about, and books in Arabic, French, and English are exhibited at stands, even if the Lebanese buying power has been drastically reduced.

The book fair in Beirut has always “meant a lot to us,” said Idriss. “It’s not so interesting to us financially but still, it’s Beirut, and we want to keep Beirut’s important role in publishing and culture.”