The Sharjah Book Authority has indefinitely postponed the Sharjah Booksellers Conference and the Sharjah Children's Reading Festival, both scheduled to run from late April to early May, citing ongoing unrest in the Middle East region.
"This decision has not been taken lightly," the SBA said in a notice to registered participants, "but the safety and wellbeing of all participants remains our highest priority." No rescheduled dates were given. The SBA said it would share further updates "as the situation evolves."
The postponements affect a quartet of events set to run April 22 through May 3 at Expo Centre Sharjah.
The Sharjah Children's Reading Festival, an annual program drawing families, authors, publishers and librarians from across the region, was to open April 22. It typically features some 1,500 activities and draws in excess of 150,000 visitors.
The Sharjah Booksellers Conference, a two-day professional event for hundreds of international booksellers that runs in conjunction with the festival, was scheduled for May 2–3.
The Sharjah Conference for School Librarians, organized in partnership with the American Library Association and set for April 27–28, and the Sharjah NYU SPS Executive Publishing Program were also expected to run within that same time frame.
These cancelations mark a significant disruption to the publishing events calendar in the UAE and the Arab world, which included the postponement of the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, which had been scheduled to open April 11.
