Hundreds including publishers, poets, authors, culture buffs and bookworms flocked to East Africa University (EAU) campus for first Garowe International Book Fair on Thursday, Garowe Online reports.
Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali alongside Education Minister and parliamentarians has officially launched the three-day fair that features panel sessions and remarks by more than 30 keynote speakers.
Some 572 books; dictionaries, peer-reviewed journals,children’s books, fictional, literature, cultural, and academic and general books have been put on display in the presence of guests and officials.
The Garowe International Book Fair was co-organized by Somali Institute for Development and Research Analysis (SIDRA) and SCANSOM Publishers.
Among the speakers were Prof Lidwien E Kapteijns who is Somali Culture Researcher at Welesley College and the author of‘Clan Cleansing in Somalia: The Ruinous Turn of 1991’ and Russian Somali linguist Dr. G. Kapchits.
Guled Salah Bare, the Executive Director of SIDRA expressed a delight with the book fair largely funded by Puntland Government.
Popular Somali literary scholar Ahmed Farah Idaja spoke at the international book fair where he availed two books.
Somalia, once considered as nation of poets has recently begun to re-assume the identity, with similar fairs being staged in Mogadishu and Hargeisa.
First Garowe International Book Fair which engaged publishing houses and distributors at home and in the diaspora will end on July 31.
