The Institut Ramon Llull is taking part in the Publishers Conference of the 42nd Sharjah International Book Fair. The event will bring together cultural agents and publishers from more than 70 countries, with the aim of creating new opportunities and paving the way for new collaborative initiatives with the Arab literary market. The three-day programme includes seminars on various publishing-related topics, presentations and networking sessions.

South Korea is the guest country of the SIBF 2023, which will be attended by more than 2,000 publishers and exhibitors from 108 countries. The theme of the fair, organised by the Sharjah Book Authority, is “Let’s Talk About Books”. The event will bring together 600 authors from all over the world and an estimated one and a half million titles will be presented there.

Attending the fair enables the IRL to expand its contacts with publishers, translators and strategic influencers in the region, as well as to promote literary translations from Catalan into Arabic.

Children’s and young adult literature is the category with the largest number of translations from Catalan into Arabic. However, authors such as Joan Sales (Uncertain Glory), Marta Orriols (Learning to Talk to Plants) and Jordi Puntí (Messi: Lessons in Style) have also been translated over the last year.

In order to continue promoting translations from Catalan into Arabic, the IRL will be taking part in the Cairo International Book Fair in Egypt next January.