Greece – Guest of Honour at the 44th Sharjah International Book Fair

Greece was the Guest of Honour at the 44th Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF 2025), one of the world’s leading publishing events, that took place from 5 to 16 November 2025 at the Expo Centre Sharjah.

At the National Pavilion (Hall 5, Stand L13), which covered 200 sq.m., 59 publishers, cultural organizations, and institutions participated, including 28 with a physical presence. Around 600 titles in Greek and other languages were presented — editions from the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, its supervised bodies, cultural foundations, and both Greek and foreign publishers specializing in translations of Greek works. A central role was given to GreekLit, the translation funding programme for Greek books into other languages, implemented by the Hellenic Foundation for Books and Culture (HFBC).

Greece’s presence at SIBF 2025 was accompanied by a rich programme of professional and cultural events, featuring more than 70 participants — authors, poets, translators, illustrators, musicians, actors, librarians, academics, representatives of cultural institutions, and publishers.

Greece took part in the Professional Programme and the 15th Sharjah International Book Fair Publishers Conference (Sunday 2 – Tuesday 4 November 2025), held prior to the official opening of the fair.  In addition, Greece participated in the 12th Sharjah International Library Conference (SILC) (Wednesday 5 – Saturday 8 November 2025), which took place alongside the fair.

As part of its Guest of Honour participation, Greece has prepared a series of Arabic translations of Greek works, including anthologies of State Prize-winning poetry and short stories, as well as contemporary poetic dramatic monologues.

The Sharjah International Book Fair is the largest book fair in the Arab world and one of the three biggest internationally. In 2024, it welcomed over 1.8 million visitors and 2,500 publishers and exhibitors from 100 countries, hosting 2,000 events and 3,000 professional meetings for rights and collaborations.

Greece’s national participation in the international book fairs is implemented for the years 2023 to 2025 by the Directorate of Letters of the General Directorate of Contemporary Culture of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, within the framework of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan of the European Union.

Image 1-2: The President of HFBC Nikos Bakounakis presented the landscape of the book publishing and book policy in Greece. A discussion with Kostas Katsoularis, President of the Hellenic Authors’ Society, and Evangelia Chyti, publisher, followed.

Image 3: Greece participated in the 15th Publishers Conference (Sharjah International Book Fair Publishers Conference, 2–4 November 2025), which preceded the official opening of the Sharjah International Book Fair. On Sunday, 2 November, a round table was held on “The Greek Book Market and the GreekLit Translation Grant Programme”, featuring Sissy Papathanassiou, Director of the Directorate of Letters of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, and Nikos Bakounakis, President of the Hellenic Foundation for Books and Culture (HFBC). Numerous meetings with representatives of the international publishing community took place during the conference, strengthening networking opportunities and fostering future collaborations for the Greek book sector.

Photographs: Sissy Morfi