The story
Baghdad International Book Fair in Baghdad
An annual publishing trade fair at the Baghdad International Fairground in Mansour, running since 1978 and now organized by the Al-Mada Group with hundreds of publishing houses from Iraq, the Arab world, and beyond twenty countries. It offers book stalls, author talks, and forums rather than the general commerce of Baghdad's other fairgrounds event, and is often paired in conversation with the city's historic Mutanabbi Street book market nearby.
Launched in 1978, the Baghdad International Book Fair predates the wars, sanctions, and occupation that reshaped Iraq over the following four decades, and it kept returning even when the country around it did not resemble a place for literary festivals.