Tbilisi: participants of book festival note youth's interest in reading

Over 70 publishers took part in the fair at the 21st Tbilisi International Book Festival. Young people are most interested in reading; therefore, new Georgian writers are now in demand, publishers have emphasized.

"In Georgia, the publishing business is growing; as compared with 2018, the number of participants in the fair has gone up," a source from the Association of Georgian Publishers and Printing Companies told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Irakli Bukridze, the editor-in-chief of the "Books in Batumi" Publishers, said that in 2015, he decided to publish translated science fiction books. "Before that, no one in Georgia believed that science fiction can make profits," he said.

Officials of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Georgia have marked a steady interest in literature. One of the booths exposed literature of the NGO "Sovlab" on the history of Stalinist repressions, and of the NGO "Caucasian Home" on the culture and history of Caucasian nations.

The number of good writers in Georgia has increased, Lasha Bakradze, Director of the Museum of Georgian Literature, has noted.

Local authors began progressing thanks to the appearance of a mass reader, said Zviad Kvaratskheliya, a representative of the "Intellect" Publishers.

Writers from Germany, Finland and USA were exposed at the book fair.