HCM CITY — HCM City’s annual Book Festival kicks off on Monday (March 19) at Lê Văn Tám Park in District 1.

Organised by the city’s People’s Committee, it will feature 300,000 titles this year, including hundreds of new ones, and three million copies that will be sold at discounts of up to 50 per cent at 900 stalls.

The week-long event includes more than 180 international and Vietnamese publishers, distributors, and other companies.

The major foreign names include Cambridge, Oxford University Press, National Geographic, Heuber, Kinokuniya, Mifflin Harcourt and Macmillan.  

From Việt Nam, the HCM City General Publishing House, National Politics Publishing House, Trẻ (Youth) Publishing House, and Phương Nam Book will be among those taking part. 

Among the popular titles on display will be Nguyễn Đông Thức’s Diễm Đi Đâu-Vòng Tay Bạn Bè 1 (Where’s Diễm - Friends’ Arms) and Cuộc Trùng Phùng Trong Mơ - Vòng Tay Bạn Bè II (Meeting in a Dream- Friends’ Arms), a collection of two books about teenagers.

Kim Đồng Publishing House will display 4,000 titles of books, including 300 new titles written by young authors.

Trẻ Publishing House’s 150 new titles are mostly literary books.  

The books of authors Phan Triều Hải, Nguyễn Ngọc Thuần and Lê Minh Quốc, which are about stories of urban life, will be featured.

Saigon Books will release publications about religion by famous writers, such as the Most Venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh, Thích Nhất Từ and Thích Nữ Nhuận Bình.

Cultural researchers, veteran and young authors, including An Chi, Phạm Hoàng Quân, Viên Trân, will take part in seminars and forums about reading held on the festival’s sidelines.

HCM City-based Fahasa, a leading book distributor, will award the year’s Best Book based on readers’ votes on March 23.  

Many books will be given away as gifts on the festival’s closing day, March 25. Entrance to the event will be free.

More than one million visitors are expected at the festival. — VNS