Lahore’s Literary Lantern

A report on the 29th Lahore International Book Fair

This year’s Lahore International Book Fair ran from February 5th-9th at the Expo Centre in Johar Town, and as usual the occasion was marked by a festive and jovial atmosphere. Unlike other book fairs such as the one held by Punjab University in the spring, the LIBF attracts a diverse crowd of readers cutting across class, generational, and cultural lines. The stalls at the LIBF reflect this diversity with an eclectic array of material on sale provided by booksellers and publishers from across the country. Religious books, children’s books, textbooks, general fiction and non-fiction, new and old- all sorts of reading material was available in this marketplace of ideas, with prices to suit most budgets.

One of the main reasons to attend the LIBF is to take advantage of the numerous discounts on offer by major publishers and booksellers. In this regard, Oxford University Press Pakistan did well in providing a select number of English and Urdu titles at massive price reductions of as much as 60%, with other stock reduced in price by 25%. Other retailers such as Readings and Liberty Books offered a less generous 15% off on their new stock. They did have small sections providing books at heavily reduced prices, but unlike in previous years the selection this time around was lacklustre. Fortunately, this was more than made up for by the increased presence of second-hand booksellers. At one second-hand stall I spotted for Rs350 the two-volume slipcased paperback edition of the Penguin Classics translation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace. From other stalls I acquired Jewish-American Islamic convert Maryam Jameelah’s long out-of-print Islam and Western Society for Rs100, and philosopher-statesman Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan’s Towards a New World for just Rs75.

Other interesting items could be found in the most unlikely of places. The Karachi-based outlet Paradise Books had a stall dominated by Islamic and children’s books, but amongst such material one could pick up James Ellroy’s novel L A Confidential for Rs200. Deep inside the large stall of the Allied Book Company and almost hidden from view was a table with dozens of titles imported from the Indian publisher Asian Educational Services, who reprint old and out-of-print works relating to the Indian Subcontinent.

“…the LIBF attracts a diverse crowd of readers cutting across class, generational, and cultural lines”

A welcome development at this year’s LIBF was the expanded presence of Jumhoori Publications. Describing themselves as an independent and progressive publisher, they have, over the past fifteen years, published complete Urdu translations of works such as Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and Noam Chomsky’s The Culture of Terrorism. This year the emphasis was on promoting their reprint of the classic children’s book for adults The Little Prince, written by the early 20th century French aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. One of the most successful books in publishing history, The Little Prince is nevertheless not easy to find in Pakistan; knowing this, and feeling that the book was not as well-known here as it should be, Jumhoori acquired the rights to publish the book for the local market. Their reprint is an unabridged reproduction of the English translation by Katherine Woods, and priced at Rs500. Its only flaw is that the images are not in colour, but given the uncertainty and costs associated with such a project, this decision is understandable. One hopes that a positive response to the book will prompt the publishers to produce a more colourful second edition.

Not far away from where Jumhoori were selling their Urdu translation of Lord Kinross’s biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was the stall for Harmony Publications, an Islamabad-based publisher of Turkish origin. Amongst the lavishly-designed books they displayed on Turkish and Islamic subjects one could find the Risale-i Nur, the magnum opus of theologian Said Nursî. This nine-volume hardback set, originally priced at around Rs20,000, was being sold at a discount of 30-40%. Fortunately, Harmony have also made e-book editions of some of the volumes available at a much lower price.

Making its fifth appearance in a row was Siddiqui Rare and Antique Books, the most impressive of the second-hand booksellers. Thousands of hard-to-find books were on offer in English and Urdu (as well as a smattering of books in French, German, and even Gurmukhi Punjabi), not to mention what is probably the most expensive printed book for sale in the entire country: four volumes of archaeologist Sir Aurel Stein’s monumental five-volume 1921 work Serindia. The asking price? Twenty-five lakh rupees.

One major retailer at the LIBF, alluding to security fears, confided to me that his organisation’s decision to reduce the number of their stalls this year was due to uncertainty as to what the public response would be. But he need not have worried, for the 29th LIBF was packed with book-lovers, some of them travelling to Lahore from other cities in order to find books unavailable in their own locales. Others visited just to enjoy the atmosphere, to browse and walk around to witness throngs of readers hunting, buying, and discussing books. Unlike at other book fairs, exhibitors at the LIBF put on events and competitions for children- the book fair ceases to be just another source for books and becomes a place where families can have a day out. As such, the Lahore International Book Fair leads the way in fomenting and fostering Lahore’s reading culture, especially amongst the young.