22nd Budapest Int'l Book Festival opens
Xinhua, April 24, 2015 Adjust font size:
The 22nd International Book Festival opened here on Thursday and expects to host about 500 domestic and 50 international authors over the next four days.
Hungary's Human Resources Minister Zoltan Balog opened the festival underlining how important it was to Hungary to be able to connect to global literary culture despite its unique language. Balog noted that April 23 marked the anniversary of the deaths of St. George and Shakespeare, and explained that World Book Day had been initiated as a tribute to St. George.
He also noted that this year marked the 220th anniversary of the start of organized book dissemination in Hungary, since the predecessor to the Association of Hungarian Book Publishers and Distributors was established at that time.
The four-day festival includes an exhibition and fair as well as conferences on topical issues the book profession is facing including digitization, and the possible role of the government in assisting the book market.
The festival's guest of honor is U.S. author Jonathan Franzen, who received the Budapest Grand Prix. Enditem