The Taipei International Book Exhibition (TIBE) is presenting a virtual book fair through the end of next month in place of its usual event, which was canceled this year.
The 28th edition of the exhibition was scheduled for Feb. 4 to 9 at the Taipei World Trade Center, but the Ministry of Culture and the Taipei Book Fair Foundation in January announced that the event would be postponed to this month amid concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March, the organizers said that they were canceling the event altogether.
The exhibition attracts more than 500,000 visitors each year, the foundation said.
However, Taipei International Book Exhibition Online, which opened on Friday, keeps the theme that the physical exhibition was to have — “New Horizons of Reading.”
The online event allows people to “experience amazing journeys and enrich themselves from the comfort of their own home,” organizers said.
It features four main sections: Themed Exhibitions, Reading Salons, Online Book Show and Reading News.
One of the six themed exhibitions is “Food in Federico Fellini’s Drawings” — which was organized in collaboration with the Italian Economic, Trade and Cultural Promotion Office.
The exhibition highlights 19 drawings by the Italian director, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year.
“Fellini was a genius ... but what is not well known is that before turning to cinema, he was a cartoonist,” Italian Economic, Trade and Cultural Promotion Office Representative Davide Giglio said in January.
Another themed exhibition is a showcase of the winners of this year’s TIBE Book Prize, which has been awarded since 2008, the foundation said.
Visitors to the online presentation will find descriptions of the authors and their winning works, it said.
As part of Reading Salons, videos featuring different authors and artists are to be released at 12:30pm every day through June 11, it said.
In yesterday’s video, French writer Eric Vuillard introduced his novel The Order of the Day, for which he won the Prix Goncourt in 2017.
To present the Online Book Show, the organizers invited publishers who were supposed to exhibit at this year’s canceled exhibition to recommend books.
Among them, the publishers have selected more than 1,000 books to highlight, along with introductions, the organizers said.
The Reading News section provides a platform for publishers, bookstores and other arts and cultural venues to promote events, such as book launches and workshops, they are hosting.
For more information, visit www.tibe.org.tw/en.
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