City book fair goes nationwide

The annual Shanghai Book Fair, from August 14 to 20 this year, will have 50 parallel venues in other cities across China for the first time in cooperation with bookstores.

The main venue for the fair, which is celebrating its 16th birthday this year, will still be the Shanghai Exhibition Center in Jing’an District. Over 100 other city venues will host the debuts of more than 500 books and 200 autograph events.

The seven-day book fair will hold events associated with the number 7. Each day will have a reading session of the biography of a role model. Academics will give lectures on ancient Chinese literature.

Writers from home and abroad will hold seminars at the Sinan Book Store to discuss how local culture shapes literature. UK-based writer Lyndall Gordon, Japanese novelist Mitsuyo Kakuta, along with 33 other internationally renowned writers will be at the book fair.

In suburban Qingpu District as well as Jiashan and Wujiang towns in neighboring provinces, seminars on Jiangnan culture will be held by the newly established Yangtze River Delta Reading Federation.