By IANS,
New Delhi : The World Book Fair 2013 beginning Feb 4 will celebrate indigenous literature with its theme, “Indigenous Voices – Mapping India’s Folk and Tribal Literature”, and commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda with a special pavilion exhibiting photographs and books from the spiritualist’s life.
The fair will open Feb 4 at the Pragati Maidan in the capital. France will be the guest country, with a large delegation of authors, publishers and scholars, a statement issued by the World Book Fair said Wednesday.
The French delegation will engage in discussions, conversations, exchange projects and business sessions at the fair and present cultural programmes.
The 7-day fair will be organized by the National Book Trust, India’s publishing apex body of the Ministry of Human Resource Development engaged in book promotion activities.
The fair will host 1,100 Indian and foreign publishers from countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Nepal, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the US, Britain, South Korea, Singapore and Sri Lanka, the statement said.
M.M. Pallam Raju, union minister for human resource development, will inaugurate the fair, while Karan Singh, eminent author, former minister and president of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations will be the guest of honour.
This year, the World Book Fair will also set up an author’s corner in different halls where a number of celebrity writers and literary personalities will interact with the public.
Besides, 50 to 60 books will be released at the fair.
As a part of the fair, a New Delhi Rights Table is being organized for the first time on February 2-3. The event that will bring together publishers, rights agents, translators and editors from India and abroad at a forum to network and explore business opportunities together.
The New Delhi Rights Table will offer a B2B match making sessions between publishers in a refreshingly new business ambience.
This unique format will enable participants to book their own Rights Table, meet each other, present their products and ideas and also to tentatively finalize their interests and agreements for transfer of translation and other rights of books available in English, Hindi and other regional languages.
In order to promote Indian books abroad, the National Book Trust has recently launched an initiative for providing financial assistance to foreign publishers for translating Indian books into foreign languages.
The deals that are finalized at the New Delhi Rights Table may be considered for financial assistance subject to meeting the terms and conditions of the scheme, the statement said.