The 67th Beirut Arab International Book Fair places Lebanon’s crises and its cultural, political and economic questions at the centre of a programme running until 18 October, bringing together issues of memory, war, the banking system, artificial intelligence and literature as books seek to retain their place in a country exhausted by successive crises that have narrowed the shared spaces available for debate.
The fair opened on the ninth of this month at the Seaside Arena complex on the capital’s waterfront, with the participation of Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
163 publishing houses in a jointly organised edition
The two sides helped bring the fair back under a single organisational umbrella, underlining the importance of coordination and professional cooperation in providing a shared space for publishers, writers and readers. Unified organisation is only the beginning of a more complex process, as its success depends on turning it into sustained cooperation and finding ways to help publishing houses, particularly smaller ones, survive.
These publishers operate in a market weakened by the financial crisis and rising printing and distribution costs, alongside declining purchasing power among readers. The Arab presence at the fair also raises questions about Beirut’s ability to retain its role as a space for publishing and dialogue, as several Arab capitals compete to attract cultural events and develop the publishing industry.
The fair’s history and the pressures on the publishing industry
This role is not measured solely by the number of publishers and events, but by the existence of an environment capable of ensuring the continuity of cultural production and bringing books to the public. The fair dates back to 1956, when it was founded in West Hall at the American University of Beirut. Over the decades, it became one of the occasions bringing together writing, publishing and reading.
This history gives the current edition a reach that extends beyond the lifetime of any single institution, but also confronts it with the need to turn the recovery of the past into a foundation for building a future for books, rather than merely celebrating what was achieved before.
The programme opens files on politics and the economy
The distribution of topics across the programme shows Lebanese issues being treated as open files rather than mere political occasions. It includes a discussion of Lebanon’s banking system, another on parliamentary media and the limits of democratic practice, and a meeting on rationalising the political system, alongside reviews of socialism and the crisis of capitalism.
These themes touch on several aspects of Lebanon’s crisis, from money, which many Lebanese have lost faith in, to institutions facing a test of their legitimacy, as well as political and economic ideas that need to be reassessed after the collapse.
The crisis is no longer confined to economic indicators or disagreements over the form of government. It has reached citizens’ relationship with the future, their sense of the value of public participation, and society’s ability to imagine a fairer and more effective system. From this perspective, the seminars seek to reopen deferred files, while their impact will depend on their ability to generate serious debate beyond the fair’s halls and into the public sphere.
Oral history recalls Beirut’s transformations and cultural past
The programme provides a platform for raising questions, while the continuation of the debate depends on cultural, educational and professional institutions engaging with it after the events end. History appears in the programme as a means of understanding the present. Activities include a discussion of Khaled Ziadeh’s book “The Unique Decade of the Sixties”, and a recovery of the history of Ras Beirut through oral testimony, alongside tributes to intellectual and cultural figures.
These approaches make it possible to view the transformations of the city and Lebanon through residents’ experiences and changes in ideas and institutions. Oral history is particularly important in a country where competing accounts of the past are politicised, while the testimonies of individuals, neighbourhoods and communities remain at risk of disappearing with their authors.
In this context, the programme includes a meeting entitled “We Are All in This Together: An Oral History of Ras Beirut”, which approaches the city through the details of everyday memory and the social and cultural changes it contains.
The fair is devoting space to the memory of Dar Al Adab, associated with influential experiences in Arab publishing, as well as to figures who left their mark on journalism, thought and the arts. Bringing these moments together in one programme raises the question of preserving Beirut’s memory without allowing it to become nostalgia detached from the present, and of linking the city’s accumulated experiences to the questions it faces today.
War asserts its presence across the edition’s events from different angles, including a discussion on writing about war and a session on protecting cultural heritage in the face of Israeli aggression, as well as literary and intellectual works connected with memory, identity and meaning.
These topics treat the effects of war as extending beyond material destruction and human losses, affecting people’s relationship with their places and the landmarks that carry the history of their communities, as well as the language used to recount what happened. The session on protecting cultural heritage places responsibility for safeguarding memory within the public debate, on the basis that a historic building, village, neighbourhood or archaeological site is not merely an architectural element.
They are vessels of social and cultural life linked to collective awareness, and their loss may erase parts of a place’s memory and the ties connecting its residents. Cultural debate cannot replace practical protection, documentation and institutional work, but its value lies in naming the loss, identifying what should be saved and keeping responsibility present in public awareness.
Through this connection, heritage protection becomes not merely a specialist concern but an issue tied to society’s continuity and its relationship with its past and place. The discussion of writing about war addresses literature’s ability to approach violence without turning suffering into a commodity, and how to recount an experience in which personal memory overlaps with collective memory and the event becomes larger than language’s ability to contain it.
These questions extend beyond Lebanon, but they are particularly pressing there because the effects of war remain part of a living experience. Another feature of the edition is the bringing together of Arabic and Francophone books in a shared cultural space, alongside a programme by the French Institute involving writers and artists from several countries.
Part of this programme is spread across Lebanese cities outside the capital, extending the activities beyond Beirut. This presence recalls one of Beirut’s cultural characteristics: the interaction of languages and intellectual currents, and the translation, exchange and familiarity that result from it.
The value of this diversity is measured not only by the number of titles or the nationalities of participants, but by the quality of dialogue it enables, its ability to move literature between different experiences, and the opportunity it gives readers to view their concerns from outside their usual language. The meetings include works connected with Gaza, including Lina Tabbal’s book published by Zaman Books, “A Hundred Ships of Love for Gaza”, alongside discussions of literature’s ability to approach the human experience.
This cultural exchange creates a direct link with events in the region, rather than merely presenting an international literary scene detached from its surroundings. Sustaining this vitality, however, requires more than the days of the fair, including publishing institutions capable of continuing their work, cultural policies that encourage translation, and wider opportunities for readers to access books.
When these elements are available, linguistic diversity can become part of a sustainable cultural life rather than a seasonal presence that ends with the programme. The fair provides space for questions about artificial intelligence, from its impact on academic libraries and their transformation into knowledge centres to its practical applications, relationship with religion and the debate over what it means to be human in the face of machines.
These themes reflect the scale of the challenges facing educational and cultural institutions as access to knowledge changes and digital research tools expand. The seminars raise questions about the role the library can play in the digital environment, and about human responsibility for verifying and interpreting information and creating meaning.
These issues are linked to Lebanon’s reality, where universities and schools face financial and educational challenges, while students need knowledge tools that keep pace with technological change without widening the gap between them and those with greater resources. This reality places the actual conditions of education at the heart of the debate on artificial intelligence, including institutions’ ability to update curricula and provide training, and disparities in access to technology.
Discussion of new applications cannot be separated from the educational infrastructure that will use them or from the resources available to students and teachers. The fair also offers activities for children, including storytelling, drawing, puppet-making, theatre and educational games.
These events affirm that building a relationship with books begins before university, and that developing a new reader requires an experience combining imagination with participation and discovery. Expanding access to these activities in schools and neighbourhoods remains a practical challenge, particularly for children whose families have been burdened by crises and whose cultural opportunities have been reduced.
The edition recalls figures from several fields, including intellectual Sobhi Al-Saleh, Ghassan Tueni, Ahmad Kaabour, Kamal Jumblatt and Chouchou, as well as events linked to contemporary authors and writers. The selection brings together thought, journalism, the arts and literature, signalling that Lebanese culture was formed through the interaction of these fields, not through literature alone.
Tributes become more than a recovery of names when they open the way to a new reading of their subjects’ works and questions, allowing younger generations to learn about their achievements and discuss which of their ideas remain relevant. Preserving memory begins with recalling names, while renewing it requires criticism, comparison and linking past experiences to current transformations.
The programme also raises issues concerning literary prizes, novel writing and the relationship between literature, memory and war. These topics give writers and readers an opportunity to discuss the conditions in which literature is produced and received, as the public’s relationship with books changes under the pressure of digital platforms and the rapid circulation of content.
During its ten days, the fair can bring publishers, writers and readers together in one place and organise dozens of seminars, signings and meetings, but the edition’s impact will also depend on what follows the closing of its doors. The questions include whether Lebanese publishers can continue in an unsettled market, whether books can remain affordable for readers whose purchasing power has declined, and whether discussions can be turned into cooperation between cultural institutions, universities and schools.
The fair’s outcome is also linked to Beirut’s ability to turn its cultural diversity into a sustained productive force. Culture cannot by itself resolve the crises of the economy, politics and war, but it provides society with space to think about them, preserve testimonies, test new ideas and keep dialogue open when its avenues narrow.
Since the fair began in 1956, it has been linked to Beirut’s cultural life and the Arab publishing movement. In its current edition, memory, war, the political system, artificial intelligence and literature stand alongside one another in a single programme, while the main test remains whether these issues can move from the seminar agenda into a broader public debate, and whether books can retain a permanent place in people’s lives beyond the calendar of annual events.
