Zimbabwe International Book Fair
The annual ZIBF for 2011 has been set for the 28th to the 30th of July in the Harare Gardens. Running under the theme “Books for Africa’s Development”, the fair hopes to regain its rank of being the best in Africa. A two-day Young Person’s Indaba on the 25th and 26th of July will pave way for the Book Fair. Read more form the Herald website.
This event promotes the love of books, reading and writing. It is a well-known fact that when there were no televisions or computers, reading was the principal leisure activity. Thus Africans possess a strong traditional orientation to oral and cultural forms of education, communication and entertainment. Information transmitted through song, dance and storytelling is more widely embraced.
Book Fairs across Africa aim to encourage cross-border trade in books and create a reading culture in the region. They do so by bringing together the book chain functions; authorship, publishing, distribution and readership. ZIBF by virtue of taking an international stance accommodates writers, publishers, booksellers, reading clubs and libraries from Africa and the developed world.
We hope to see the stature of ZIBF grow to enable it to be considered as the one of the top International Book Fairs in the world. Thus librarians, documentalists and publishers, authors, writers should all come together to make this a success. Exhibitors can choose a display option that best fits their needs from a single or double dedicated space devoted exclusively to them.
On their Facebook page ZIBF wrote:
“The ZIBF was the biggest and best book fair in Africa during the 1990s. Sadly, it’s now gone the way of many other things in Zimbabwe.”
Exhibitors please rekindle the experience by emailing information [at] zibfa [dot] org [dot] zw or events [at] zibfa [dot] org [dot] zw to receive an Exhibition Stand Application Form. Early application is advised to avoid disappointment.