TEHRAN (Dispatches) - Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei visited the 25th Tehran International Book Fair (TIBF) on Sunday.
The leader was accompanied by Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyed Mohammad Hosseini and his Deputy Bahman Dorri during the tour.
Ayatollah Khamenei conversed with a number of authors and publishers and was briefed on Iranian publications in the last year.
The annual Tehran International Book Fair kicked off at Tehran's Imam Khomeini Mosalla (prayers ground) on Wednesday and will continue work for ten days.
Official estimates released by the fair officials said that a number of 1.7 million people visited the fair in the first four days of the cultural event.
Officials believe that the Tehran book fair receives the most number of visitors in the world.
The TIBF Is known to the International Publishing World as the most important publishing event in Asia and the Middle East. It is a place where the publishers directly supply books and negotiate for their future business. It is a venue for exchange of ideas and a commercially valuable exhibition as a business.
Several titles containing forged maps of the Persian Gulf have been abruptly taken off stands, TIBF President Bahman Dorri told the book fair’s press office Saturday.
The TIBF authorities rounded up the lawless titles that carried the ‘A-r-a-b-i-a-n Gulf’ misnomer instead of the millennia-old, established name of Persian Gulf, Dorri said.
The titles were cleared immediately after the authorities were informed about their content.
Titles deemed to be in major breach of the TIBF rules will be abruptly taken of stands however their pavilions of origin will remain serving albeit without such titles. Such major breaches include promotion of deviant religious sects including Bahaism and Wahabism as well as promotion of ousted dictators of Muslim countries involved in the Islamic Awakening movement, namely Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen.
An Iranian lawmaker described the Tehran International Book Fair as a window for different publishers to get familiar with one another and exchange views and information.
Laleh Eftekhari, a representative of Tehran in the Iranian parliament told the TIBF press office on Saturday that the landmark cultural event provides the ground for people and authorities to review the existing capacities in the national publication sector.
‘House of authors’ section of the Book Fair will host up to 60 panel discussions in most of which panelists review a series of titles lately published nationwide, the TIBF press office said.
The panel discussions will also deal with Iranian calendar’s cultural occasions as well as issues and challenges facing the Iranian publication sector. The panel discussions will be held during the TIBF event that will run through to May 12.
There are also schedules for other panel discussions across the fairground. In a section called ‘House of Children’ for example, two panel discussions are held per day each featuring a renowned Iranian author meeting and talking with visiting children.
Three panel discussions too will be held on a daily basis in a pavilion called ‘Didar’ (rendezvous) until the end of the TIBF event where critics review selected publications of several national literary awards, namely Jalal al-Ahmad Award, Parvin E’tesami Award, Seasonal Book Award, First Stride Award, and Persian Gulf Award.
Finally, in a pavilion called ‘Free Thought,’ two panel discussions will be held on a daily basis where participants join debates on several pressing issues and freely exchange their views with one another.
Over 2,400 Iranian publishers and 1,600 publishers from 77 countries are offering their products at the fair this year.
The fair will be running until May 12 at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Mosalla.
