QUILLBLOG

Trouble at the Tehran Book Fair

You’d think a book fair held in the capital of Iran would be a model of intellectual openness and the free exchange of ideas, wouldn’t you?

According to the Index of Censorship, that is just not the case, as the Iranian government has done everything it can to stifle the fair (which begins tomorrow), even separating the foreign publishers from the domestic Iranian ones.

Formerly one of the most significant international book fairs in Asia and the Middle East, the 20th Tehran Fair’s self-stated main goal is ‘to make the latest quality books available to the educated and professional communities in the country.’

But many of these people are regarded as political threats to the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His efforts to separate them from the outside world are stretching the organisation of the [...] fair to the breaking point.

The plan is to separate Iranian publishers from international ones into two events at different ends of the city. The current suggestion is to relocate the Iranian publishers to Mosala, a huge public prayer site north of the city. The international publishers would stay at last year’s venue, Tehran’s International Exhibition Centre.

Even more ominous are unconfirmed reports that the Iranian equivalent of Quill & Quire has been prevented from distributing copies of its Show Daily on the grounds of the fair. (We could just be totally making that part up, however.)