Antalya Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Muhittin Böcek held a press conference with Fair Coordinator Nurdan Aydın Polatçı on the occasion of the 13th Antalya Book Fair, which will be held between 24 November and 3 December 2023, hosted by Antalya Metropolitan Municipality. Stating that they have carried out many projects on behalf of the city and its citizens so far, Mayor Muhittin Böcek stated that the book fair has a different meaning for him among the more valuable projects.
“WE BROUGHT IT FROM TENTS TO TODAY”
Mayor Muhittin Böcek said that during his term as Konyaaltı Mayor in 2010, they saw how high the readers’ interest in books was with the abundance of pirated book sales in Antalya, and said, “In order to bring together book lovers of Antalya with authors, we organized the 1st Antalya Konyaaltı Book Fair in our Konyaaltı City Square with the theme ‘Need to Read’.” we had started it. After 1 tent, 2 tents, 5 tents, we moved our fair, which could not fit in tents, to the Glass Pyramid. We did not remain idle during this process. In 2017, we brought Nazım Hikmet Fair and Congress Center to Antalya. “We opened both our fair center and the book fair together on November 24, the most important day of our beloved teachers,” he said.
“DURING THE PANDEMIC PERIOD, EVERYONE STOPPED, WE DID NOT”
Reminding that they held the 11th Book Fair by saying ‘the world stopped, everyone stopped, we did not stop’, while no book fair was held in Turkey during the pandemic period, Mayor Böcek said, “We said that the future will bloom with knowledge and we completed our book fair with the visit of 589 thousand 786 book lovers from Antalya. The pandemic process that affected the world benefited book lovers. People who did not have the opportunity to read magazines and books in their busy and fast-paced business lives had the opportunity to read the books they bought from our fair. “At the 12th fair, we said ‘Continue life by studying’ and we broke the Turkish record with 1 million 9 thousand visitors,” he said.
“GUEST OF HONOR AHMET ÜMİT”
Noting that they will hold the 13th Antalya Book Fair on the 100th anniversary of the Republic with the slogan “We are writing the second century of our Republic together”, President Muhittin Böcek said:
“This year, with our book fair that we will open on November 24, Teachers’ Day, we wanted to honor our teachers who work hard to raise future generations in line with the revolution and principles of our Head Teacher Atatürk. We attribute this book fair to them. We will write the second century of our Republic together with our dear teachers and students. This year, we will host 263 authors and 204 national and international publishing houses at our 13th Antalya Book Fair. Our valuable writer Ahmet Ümit will be the guest of honor.”
263 AUTHORS WILL PARTICIPATE
President Muhittin Böcek announced some of the writers who will participate in the fair this year as follows:
“CHP Group Deputy Chairman Ali Mahir Basarir, Ayşe Kulin, Barış Doster, Barış Terkoğlu, Feyza Altun, Barış Pehlivan, Prof. Dr. Celal Şengör, Cihad Yaycı, Dilara Pamuk, Ezo Sunal, Academician Anne Saniye Bencik Kangal, Hakan Günday, Işıl Işık, İlker Başbuğ, İrfan Değirmenci, Yılmaz Özdil, İsmail Küçükkaya, Saadet Özkan, Mine Söğüt, Mete Yarar, Serhat Foreign, Timur Soykan We will bring together our valuable writers such as , Nurullah Genç, İnci Aral, Murat Ağırel, Moruvaki, Zeynep Oral, Serkan Karaismailoğlu, Müfit Can Saçıntı with the book lovers of Antalya. “I am also attending the fair with my two books.”
