Kuwait Book Fair still popular despite digital information dominance
Kuwait, The Gulf Observer: Kuwait Book Fair has attracted a large number of people following a two-year hiatus, manifesting unwavering interest in seeking knowledge from paper pages in spite of the largely dominating digital information means.
The restored annual event, a festival for the booklovers (also called bookworms), has been largely facilitated by the unprecedented initiative by Minister of Information Abdulrahman Al-Mutairi who relieved the participating publishing houses of fees’ burden.
At the fair ground in Mishref, on the southern outskirts of Kuwait City, the parking lots have been teeming with vehicles, and the inner divided halls have been crowded with visitors, inquiring or buying books to satisfy their thirst for reading from paper pages, the conventional way of reading that had been widespread for thousands of years in mankind’s history.
Although the digital media has spread widely with a torrent of information, publications and cultural products, the “book has retained its special delight for the booklovers and the (Kuwait) fair has maintained its effective role in this respect, amid the presence of a large number of publishing houses,” said Dr Mohammad Al-Faili, the renowned Kuwaiti legal expert in remarks to KUNA.
