Between 20 – 22 April 2009, the Romanian Cultural Institute has organised, for the second consecutive year, the Romanian stand at The London Book Fair.
The Romanian Cultural Institute aimed to present a comprehensive picture of the Romanian book market and for this purpose, 33 major publishing houses were invited to attend the fair.
The exhibiting publishing houses were: All, Art, Brumar, Cartea Romaneasca, Casa Radio, Corint, Corint Junior, Curtea Veche, Hasefer, House of Guides, Humanitas, Humanitas Fiction, Humanitas Multimedia, Idea, Ideea Europeana, Igloo Media, Junimea, Leda, Lider, Minerva, Nemira, Niculescu, Orizonturi, Polirom, RAO, Taj Books & Media, Trei, Tritonic, Vellant, Vivaldi, Vox, Vremea and The Romanian Cultural Institute Publishing House.
In addition to more than 800 titles of Romanian publishing houses (books, translations from English, audio books, CDs, albums, tourist guides, dictionaries), the stand has also displayed books that have been published abroad with the support of the National’s Book Centre’s funding programmes and various promotional materials.
On 20 April, the Romanian Cultural Institute organised a discussion, based on the book Once Upon Another Time by Jessica Douglas-Home, about the presence of Romanian culture in the UK and how this is perceived. The event, called ROOMania WITH A VIEW, featured Jessica Douglas-Home, Mark Almond, Anne Stewart, Anthony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple) as guest speakers and the discussion was hosted by Horia-Roman Patapievici, president of the Romanian Cultural Institute.
At this year's edition of the London Book Fair, the representatives of the National Book Centre had important meetings with those of similiar institutions, setting the details of the upcoming conference of the European book centres, to take place in Bucharest in June. The Romanian stand was visited by foreign editors, translators, book distributors who were refered to the Romanian editors present on site, and received all the necessary information concerning the exhibiting publishing houses and the Romanian book market. An important number of foreign editors stated their interest for Romanian literature and were advised as to the financing solutions that the National Book Centre offers to support the translation and publication of Romanian literature. The series of 20 Romanian authors to be published starting this fall by the prestigious publishing house University of Plymouth Press was also announced at the stand.
