By Ali Al-Rubaie and Arwa Al-Muhana

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

RIYADH — The Riyadh International Book Fair 2019 will begin on Wednesday with about 900 publishing houses from 30 countries participating.

More than 500,000 books and publications will be displayed at the fair, which will continue until March 23.

The Kingdom of Bahrain has been chosen to be the guest of honor at the 10-day book fair.

Egypt comes second after the Kingdom in the number of the exhibitors with more than 100 publishing houses participating.

Egypt is followed by Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Sudan, Oman, Palestine, Yemen and Mauritania.

International publishing houses from countries including Spain, Australia, Holland, Britain, Poland, Germany, Turkey, the US, China, Japan, India and South Korea are also participating.

Abdullah Al-Kinani, supervisor of cultural affairs at the Ministry of Media, said in a press conference on Sunday, there would be a bar code for each visitor enabling him/her to obtain discounts from 20 percent to 40 percent by some publishing houses.

He said there would be 62 various activities consisting of seminars, workshops, poetic nights, cultural lectures and others.

Kinani said up to 18 hours would be dedicated to screening a number of short Saudi films each day of the fair.

The ministry has announced that a number of movie actors, producers and directors will be honored during the fair.

Omar Al-Saif, head of the fair’s cultural committee, said there would be a cultural council during which men and women of letters will hold direct dialogues with the visitors.

Three Saudi plays, produced by the Society of Culture and Arts, will be presented in addition to five Saudi feature films, he added.

Saif said there would be special programs for children and a corner for reading of books for an hour every day.