Romania returns to London Book Fair after three-year pause

Romania will participate in this year's edition of the London Book Fair after a three-year pause. This means that the country will have its own stand at the fair and a diverse program of events held under the slogan Romania at LBF - Write Where We Belong!

"We are returning to the London Book Fair after a three-year absence, during which the national book market went through two consecutive major crises, which it survived brilliantly, adapting to new ways of selling and promoting. The Romanian book market emerged stronger from this period, and our presence at the London book fair can thus be felt as a rebirth and a reconnection," said Liviu Jicman, president of the Romanian Cultural Institute.

Professionals from the Romanian publishing field will have, within the London Book Fair, a space of 25 square meters (Stand 7F55, placed in Pavilion 7, the one intended for international exhibitors), News.ro reported. The event is scheduled for April 18-20.

A wide selection of recent Romanian books, made available to the Romanian Cultural Institute by the best-known local publishing houses, will be exhibited at the stand. Also, a catalogue prepared by the National Book Center with a selection of 15 Romanian titles, with presentations and extracts translated by Irina Dubsky into English, will be exhibited at the stand alongside several dozen postcards illustrated by Romanian artists, with themes related to national identity, offered by the Romanian Post.

Also under the London Book Fair umbrella, the Romanian Cultural Institute, through the National Book Center, will organize events in three well-known bookstores in London.

The series of events will open on April 18 with a debate for book publishing and distribution professionals hosted by the London Review Bookshop.

The next day, April 19, the debate "Politics and Power in Romanian Arts Before the Romanian Revolution" will take place at the Nomad Books. The discussion is built around the volume "Visual Arts in Romania 1945-1989. With an Addendum 1990-2020" by Magda Cârneci (published in 2022 by the ICR Publishing House, the English edition bearing the signature of Alina Cârâc).

"The Censor's Notebook" by Liliana Corobca (Polirom, 2017), recently published in English by Seven Stories Press, will be the starting point of the meeting with the theme "Censorship as Literature | Literature as Censorship", which will take place on Thursday, April 20.

(Photo source: Facebook/Institutul Cultural Roman)