RIYADH — The annual Riyadh Book Fair, carrying the slogan “Books Mean Coexistence”, will open on Wednesday and continue for 10 days with a total of 915 printing and publishing houses from Saudi Arabia and 29 other countries participating. Nasser Al-Hojailan, undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture and Information for cultural affairs, expected about a million people to visit the fair at the Riyadh International Exhibition Center. He told a press conference on Saturday that the participating publishers have been selected out of 1,273 applicants. Hojailan, who is general supervisor of the event, said the fair, extending over an area of 23,000 square meters, will for the first time include additional services such as book shipping, electronic sales and book searches through numerous electronic equipment installed all over the area. “There will be special areas for book signing and a special corner named ‘In Memory of the Departed Ones' to honor the writers and authors who have died since the previous fair,” he said. He said two publishing houses, one Saudi and the other Arab, would be honored at the end of the exhibition for their services to the community. Hojailan also said there will be a special focus this year on children's culture and added that a number of workshops on the topic will be organized and lectures delivered. Saleh Al-Ghamdi, the fair's director, said the exhibition management would control the prices in a bid to keep them at a reasonable level. He asked buyers to report any highly inflated prices and said the management would oblige offending publishers to reimburse buyers.
