The festival of books... a feast for the mind

Observer

28-04-2025

The 29th edition of Muscat International Book Fair being held at Oman Convention Centre is a happening place.
Over 674 publishing houses from 35 countries are participating in the 10-day book fair. More than 681,000 titles are available to choose from and the book lovers are having a feast.
There are speakers, art exhibitions and cultural activities to make it more exciting for the visitors.
Over the years, the exhibitors also have been finding innovative ways to make people relate to books. The Ministry of Education's pavilion has people dressed distinctly and when you strike up a conversation they reveal the identity of the notable historical personalities they represent. These personalities are in the Unesco's International Programme of celebration of historic events and influential persons. The personality we met at the book fair this year was the Omani navigator Ahmed bin Majid. The actor who is representing Ahmed bin Majid is bilingual and with ease he switched to Arabic and English as he spoke to the visitors.
Omani navigator, Ahmed bin Majid was added to the list of influential world personalities. The listing coincided at that time with the 600th birthday of the Omani navigator and he became the sixth personality.
One can imagine the delight people experience when they meet the personality and hear him explain the various aspects of his life and achievements and show them the navigational tools.
This year many embassies are participating as well. As you walk through the lanes there is the sound of string instruments and at times a melody of the flute. There is a booth from Brunei Darussalam. Hafizam Sofian is an artist who plays the traditional string instrument and at times, the flute. There is a corner introducing the visitors to the sweets of Brunei and then the section of books.
Hafizam politely informed the visitors who wanted to purchase the flutes that they were not for sale and that were his personal collection. He is also happy to explain about his string musical instrument - Sapeh.
'They used to traditionally have just three strings but in the recent three years three more strings were added and so now we have six strings in total,' he noted.
Another person explained that there are two Arabic universities in Brunei.
As always the book fair is popular with students who look out for academic books as well.
And a friend asked, 'Do you think in this digital world people still want physical books?'
The answer to that has to be seen at the book fair that attracts readers and book enthusiasts of all ages. A book stall from Iraq has the best of bookmarks made of metal. It seems to attract a lot of attention because their designs catch the imaginations. There are book stands and posters aimed at young readers.
It takes 21 days to form a habit and the book fair in its 29th year, has become a tradition. A tradition the whole family participates in. It is a hub to gather and check out the new books, titles and publishers.
According to experts, reading can reduce stress, increase concentration, increase empathy, develop agile thinking, improve rationality, vocabulary, knowledge and creativity, etc.
The most important part of the book fair is the participation of the families. Young children accompany their families, and when they browse through the book stalls, it might be the characters of the stories that attract them and probably the posters and stickers as well as colouring books, but the significance is that the young ones are beautifully introduced to the world of words and books.
Here the family members are the influencers. With so many titles and topics to choose from, the place is a haven for readers and for the publishers a home it is home they like to come to every year.
The festival of books is a feast for the mind.
Lakshmi Kothaneth
The writer is a senior editor of Observer