18th International Book Festival - Naked Literature

Stumbling into international authors at every corner, seeing exhibitions related to Hungary’s EU Presidency and a good glance at the book market - this is what is going to be on offer.

At the festival, customarily a Budapest Grand Prize is given to one of the international authors. The list of recipients features such personalities as Lyudmilla Ulitskaya, Salman Rushdie, Slavomir Mrozek, Robert Merle and many others.

The exhibitors, the publishing houses invite their authors, and visitors can personally meet writers from China, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia as well as from the countries of the European Union. In fact, the latter, the whole European Union, will be the Guest of Honor at the festival. They represent the multilingual and rich, diverse culture of Europe with a focus on contemporary literature.

The festival encompasses a wide variety of cultural and literary programs, on stage discussions, author-reader meetings and book signings throughout the four days. To delineate the significance of the festival in numbers: there will be about 300 cultural programs, one could meet about half a thousand international and Hungarian writers. Last year, the event was attended by 60,000 visitors and no less is expected now.

Among the programs the Book Festival launches its International Editorial Fellowship Program for its start-up writers; festival visitors can vote for the Audience’s Award of the Most Beautiful Hungarian Book Contest; Children's Corner provides a safe and a wide range of entertainment and reading will popularized among children who can dress up to be their favorite character in the program entitled ‘Literature in Costume’. For the grown-ups, the Budapest International Book Festival remains the open and fascinating hub of the international book fair.