The Hellenic Foundation for Culture has announced the second iteration of the International Professional Program at the Thessaloniki Book Fair (TBF), which will take place May16-18, at the Thessaloniki International Exhibition & Congress Centre in Greece. Following its successful launch last year, which highlighted American literature, the program aims to foster dialogue and cooperation between the Greek and international publishing worlds.
As part of the program, the fair established a professional rights presence, dubbed the Dialogue Right Center. This year, more than 30 literary agents and foreign rights representatives from at least 22 countries are participating. Petra Hardt, former rights director at Germany's Suhrkamp Verlag, will be this year's Fellowship Ambassador. Mauro Spagnol, founder of London-based Books Everywhere, a literary agency focused on children's books, will be a special guest for the international children's book market. Among the Americans participating in the rights center are Brooke O’Donnell (Independent Publishers Group) and Peter Joseph (HarperCollins).
"Hosting U.S. as the guest of Honor in TBF last year was a wonderful experience for the publishers and the public, but also an invitation to dialogue from Greece to the grand and most prestigious book market, the U.S. one," Nopi Chatzigeorgiou, director of the fair, said. "This kind of focus offers the possibility to both sides to discover not so visible works and opportunities making the platform for business and cultural exchange. This year we had seven U.S. applicants for the 2nd Fellowship program. There is a new interest that makes us optimistic about further collaborations. I do believe we will see the results soon."
The United Arab Emirate of Sharjah is the guest of honor at this year’s fair. The program includes meetings between young Greek and Arab writers and poets, panels discussing the social role of literature in both countries, and the exploration of cultural bonds and the influence of Greek philosophy on modern Arab and Greek literature. Ten books by modern Arab writers already have been translated into Greek in preparation for the fair.
Bodour Al Qasimi, former president of the International Publishers' Association and president of the Sharjah Book Authority, will offer a talk as part of the program.
Other notable guests include Gvantsa Jobava, v-p of the IPA; Anne Bergman, director of the Federation of European Publishers (FEP); and Bojan Sazdov, President of the North Macedonian Association of Publishers.
The international networking forum PublisHer – Women in Publishing, founded by Al Qasimi, is organizing events with women publishers from Greece and the Emirates, and it will offer a series of panels aimed at empowering women in the industry. In addition, the European Network for Literary Translation (ENLIT), an organization representing institutions supporting literary translation, will hold its annual meeting during the fair.
A diverse group of acclaimed international authors from various countries and genres will be at the fair, including Italian writer Fabio Stassi and Carlo Lucarelli, Icelandic crime novelist Yrsa Sigurdardottir, German superstar thriller author Sebastian Fitzek, and renowned Turkish writer Zulfu Livaneli.
Following the fair, The Hellenic Foundation for Culture, together with BIEF (Bureau International de l'Edition Française) and the French Institute of Greece, are offering Greek-French Workshop for Children's Book and Comics in Athens on June 6-7. The event aims to offer participants the opportunity to get to know the French market. Additional events related to Sharjah and the Arab world will also take place in Athens, including workshops and music events at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and elsewhere throughout the city.
