Al Ain Book Festival 2024

AABF has changed its nomenclature from ‘book fair’ to ‘book festival’ for 2024, but this is till an important date for Arab-language publishers – and the Abu Dhabi Arabic Language Centre (ALC), which organises it, has reported a “significant” increase in publisher registration requests for this 15th edition: the 260 registrations represents better than a twothirds increase on 2023. AABF promotes the Arabic language as “a fundamental pillar of cultural identity, and a repository of the values, traditions, and the rules of conduct (Sanaa’), upon which the UAE was founded and from which its unique development journey began – a journey that starts and ends with the human being”. Last year’s fair attracted more than 95,000 visitors.

The ‘festival’ element implies that there will be a lot of sideshows and associated events, but right now the website is still promoting 2023 and we can’t tell you what they might be. No doubt this will be rectified nearer the time … Note that these dates are a change to the original schedule, which had AABF opening on 18 November.