Nearly 600 events, nearly 1,200 speakers, 80 authors, publishers and agents from 40 countries, a celebration of American literature (a first for a European event), additional venues, and a focus on the once-loose connection to the international book business. , which is now supported by the Targeted Professional Program, opens today through Sunday 19th Thessaloniki International Book Fairtaking place in the city’s exhibition center, determined to return to the post-pandemic period and after the turmoil of the last two events.

In particular, when 1st International Professional Program Launched this year, around 20 publishers and literary agents will take part in discussions and workshops on digitization and innovation in the Greek publishing sector, buying rights in the digital age, buying books around the world and of course the Greek language.

A new addition is the Human Rights Center, which aims to be a forum for communication and meetings between book professionals.

Events like his are eagerly awaited. Organization of collective management of speech works, for domestic book production in the period 2009-2022. It is significant that after some decline during the financial crisis (when it reached 8306 copies in 2012), the total number of copies of first editions of books of all categories and formats (printed or electronic) in general tends to increase, according to the OSDEL bibliographic database: in 2009 The circulation of the first editions in Greece was 10,532 in 2019, 10,923 in 2019, 12,169 in 2021 and 11,592 in 2022.

“We believe this year’s exhibition will be the largest in the institution’s history,” said Nikos Koukis, president of the Hellenic Cultural Foundation, at a press conference yesterday. the so-called Human Rights Center: its purpose is to become a forum for communication and meetings between book professionals in order to better use translation programs such as GreekLit.

On the other hand, the purely literary focus of this year’s exhibition, that is, American literature as a well-deserved “personality”, is not accompanied by an additional large tribute, as previous ones, on the topic of the relationship of time and literature, the European South, the “writing virus”, etc. American The landing at DEBTH 19, supported by the Greek American Chamber of Commerce, the US Consulate in Thessaloniki and the Association of Publishing Companies American Collective Stand, means, among other things, that the American Pavilion of the exhibition will host 22 publishers that will present a panorama of American publishing products, and at the end they will donate their displayed books to city libraries. Among the American writers who will be in attendance are Claire Mesud (Woman Upstairs, published by Gutenberg), literary critic James Wood (How Does Literature Work?, published by Antipodes), as well as Nell Zink, Saskia Vogel, and others. The exhibition will also feature Prix ​​Goncourt winners Mackenzie Orsel (from Haiti) and Mohamed Bugar-Char (from Senegal) are represented, as well as Bulgarian Georgy Gospodinov, author of books such as “Where We Are Not” and “Shelter of Time” (published by .Icarus ). Gospodinov’s presence is part of the Balkan Writers’ Forum, and the polyphonic nature of the exhibition is complemented by a collaboration with the European Union Prize for Literature, which invites award-winning writers from Greece and other European countries (Kallia Papadakis, Makis Tsitas, Nikos Chrysos, Jan Carson, Lana Bastazich and etc.). The Festival of Young Writers (with the participation of ten poets of the new generation) and the Festival of Translations also continue, and the Children’s Corner is being strengthened.