The guest of honour at this year’s book fair is Europe, and other eminent guests at this year’s fair include Irish author Jack Harte, Hungarian graphic artist, illustrator and writer Róbert Farkas, Slovenian-born writer of short stories, novels and poems in German and Slovene Anna Marwan, French writer of numerous critically acclaimed plays, short stories and novels Véronique Olmi and Spanish poet, writer and translator José Morella.

In his address at the opening of the fair, Prime Minister Marjan Šarec stated: “Reading allows you to see things in books that are not here today, but which could happen, allows you to learn things and preserve beautiful language, but most of all it allows you to value your own language and learn about other languages.”  He is optimistic about the future of books, and he believes that people will always read and teach their children about beautiful language and the culture of linguistic expression.

The prime minister also awarded the Schwentner Prize for special achievements in the book trade and publishing, which went to Mark Kravos this year. The grounds for the awarding of the prize state that in his publishing, writing and politico-cultural work, Kravos has made an exceptional contribution to the development of the Slovenian language and books in the western part of the Slovenian-speaking territory.

Slovenia will feature in two more major publishing events in the next few years: in 2021 Slovenia will be the guest of honour at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, and in 2022 it will be the guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

More about Slovenian Book Fair on slovenia.si