Book London opened its program with an event about Ukraine

The first event of the London Book Fair 2023 was the opening of the Welcome Guest Spotlight Ukraine program. This was reported by Chytomo’s own sources.

In the Focus Theater, near the Ukrainian stand, the director of the fair, Gareth Rapley, introduced Ukraine as a special guest of the fair. Gareth Rapley also showed a video message from Olena Zelenska and Oleksandr Tkachenko, Minister of Culture and Information Policy.

The fair’s director noted that they decided to support Ukraine by providing meaningful opportunities, including participation in the Guest Spotlight program. At the same time, Tkachenko said that the UK was one of the first countries to support the First Lady’s Books without Borders project, helping to print 16,000 books for forced refugees, and also mentioned the Season of Culture project as a project to strengthen ties between Ukraine and the UK, which helped to popularize both cultures.

In her video message, Olena Zelenska said that Russia is now destroying Ukrainian libraries and our books, just as it is destroying Ukrainians. She also noted that a lot of nonfiction and documentary literature is appearing recently. “Books are our witnesses,” she said.

The Ukrainian stand opened simultaneously with the event.

The Ukrainian collective booth featured about 300 books from 21 publishers: Artbooks Publishing House, ASSA, Bohdan Publishing House, Books and Cartoons, Vikhola, The Old Lion Publishing House, Clio, Kovcheh Ukraine, Nash Format Publishers, Ranok, Summit Book, Chas Maistriv Publishing House, Їzhak Publishing House, ist publishing, Parasolia Publishing House, TUT Publishing House, CP Publishing, Ukraїner, as well as the National Center for the Minor Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, and the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter.

As previously reported, the London Book Fair has changed its date in 2024.

Photo: Iryna Baturevych