News in Brief
Minister: Over 3.7m books sold at TIBF
MEHR – Iran’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad-Mehdi Esmaeili, revealed that an impressive total of over 3.7 million books were successfully purchased during the 34th Tehran International Book Fair (TIBF) held this year. Emphasizing the tremendous reception the TIBF received, Esmaeili underscored the exceptionally favorable volume of book sales achieved at this literary extravaganza.
According to Esmaeili, a staggering influx of at least seven million eager bibliophiles flocked to the book fair, collectively immersing themselves in a captivating celebration of knowledge. Moreover, the virtual domain of the TIBF, featuring the online section with complementary doorstep delivery, witnessed the sale of more than 1.7 million books, further augmenting the grandeur of this intellectual gathering.
Int'l Booker prize announces first ever Bulgarian winner
THE GUARDIAN – Georgi Gospodinov’s ‘Time Shelter,’ translated by Angela Rodel, became the first book written in Bulgarian to win the International Booker prize.
Chair of judges Leïla Slimani described ‘Time Shelter’ as “a brilliant novel full of irony and melancholy”, and added: “It is a very profound work that deals with a contemporary question and also a philosophical question: what happens to us when our memories disappear?”
The £50,000 prize, which is split equally between the author and translator, is awarded annually for a novel or short story collection in any language that has been translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.
Slimani said the novel “questions the way in which our memory is the cement of our identity and our intimate narrative.
“But it is also a great novel about Europe, a continent in need of a future, where the past is reinvented and nostalgia is a poison,” she continued. “It offers us a perspective on the destiny of countries like Bulgaria, which have found themselves at the heart of the ideological conflict between the west and the communist world.”