The Taipei International Book Exhibition concluded on Sunday, drawing about 580,000 visitors over six days, as Minister of Culture Li Yuan (李遠) highlighted the event’s role in cultural exchange with other countries.
Li said Taiwan’s cultural sector has flourished alongside its economic and technological development over the years.
“We are working hard to become a cultural nation,” he said, and promised that cultural exchanges would continue.
Photo: CNA
This year’s exhibition, which opened Tuesday last week, featured 509 publishers from 29 countries and drew 1,467 local and international authors.
Organizers held 1,301 reading promotion events and 1,853 copyright meetings. The Ministry of Culture assisted participation for 1,076 students from 50 remote schools nationwide.
Taipei Book Fair Foundation chairman Rex How (郝明義) said the exhibition’s popularity and sales substantially increased this year, crediting ministry policies allowing weekday tickets to be fully redeemed through vouchers and the use of “Cultural Points,” a program launched in 2023 to encourage young adults to participate in cultural activities.
Journalists were curious about how the exhibition manages to combine a professional copyright-trading fair with a consumer-focused exhibition, How added.
The foundation said that the Czech Republic would be the theme country, or guest of honor, for next year’s exhibition. This year’s theme country was Thailand.
David Steinke, representative of the Czech Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, said he was impressed by the fair’s growing scale and popularity, but noted that what stood out most was seeing children’s eyes light up as they explored the books — the most rewarding aspect of the event.
As next year’s theme country, Steinke described Taiwan and the Czech Republic as sharing close ties and deep literary connections. He said next year’s fair would feature classics by authors such as Milan Kundera, Franz Kafka and Bohumil Hrabal, as well as works by contemporary Czech writers.
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