‘Everyone is shocked by the prices’ at the Cairo Book Fair


To cope with the crisis, Egyptian publishers have sharply reduced their margins and the number of volumes printed. Khaled DESOUKI / AFP

Egyptian publishers have been in turmoil since the public, losing purchasing power, prefers booksellers’ stalls to new books, which have become overpriced.

Wrapped in plastic, they attract with their shimmering colors, but each time it’s the same scenario: at the Cairo International Book Fair visitors read the back cover and once they have arrived at the price… put the books back quickly . With inflation at its highest and the Egyptian pound at its lowest, the 54e edition of this great literary raout, which takes place from January 25 to February 6, is swimming in the midst of a paradox.

The Fair attracted over half a million people in one weekend “when we expected much less”, told AFP Waël al-Mulla, boss of the publishing house Masr El Arabia. But this year, sales are not there and the more than 800 publishers are struggling to recover their costs by participating in the “jewel of book fairs”, as he describes it. Egyptians had to drastically reduce their consumption, and books were among the first victims of cuts in family budgets. “After all, books are a luxury item, so they are definitely not a spending priority”continues Waël al-Mulla.

Soaring prices

The publishers’ union has favored purchases with deferred payment, popular in Egypt, and the state publishing houses continue to sell the classics for less than one euro. But in a country where most goods are imported, the devaluation has not only affected household wallets. Publishing houses, strangled by a fourfold increase in the price of paper in 2022, have had to double their prices this year.

Just last year, before the pound began its descent into hell, “with 2000 pounds”which were then worth 125 euros against 62 today “You could fill a suitcase with books, today it’s impossible”, explains to AFP Mohamed El Masry, 38, head of El Rasm Bel Kalemat editions. Suitcases, however, we still see a lot of them in the aisles of the Book Fair. But the strategy for filling them has changed.

“We see people arriving in groups: they decide together what they want to buy, each pay for part of the books and then lend them to each other”noted Abdallah Sakr, collection director at El Mahrousa. “Everyone is shocked by the prices but everyone still wants to read, so people buy two books instead of five or just one instead of two”tells AFP this 33-year-old Egyptian.

Suspension of activities

To continue to exist, the publishers also had to adapt, assures Waël al-Mulla. “Many have reduced their margins and impressions. And now I choose books more carefully: I only take titles that I know will sell well., he said. Because already, he continues, “publishers have reduced the wing to a minimum, suspended their activities while waiting for a resumption or downright closed”.

At the end of a wing of the Book Fair, a space teems: here, booksellers from the century-old Azbakeya market, second-hand books and pirated copies have taken up residence. Mohammed Chahine, who comes to the Book Fair every year, says he has gone “straight up” with her three children. “This is the most popular section of the Salon”says Malak Farid, an 18-year-old engineering student. “Even if good books go quickly because there are few copies”.

Mohamed Attia makes the trip every year from his town of Dakahlia, 150 kilometers north of Cairo. Usually, this 40-year-old imam explores the entire Fair but this year, he only looks at the booksellers’ stalls. “Book prices have exploded”he told AFP, but “not those of Azbakeya vendors”, still almost all below one euro. And finding a product whose price has not skyrocketed is a challenge in Egypt today. Even if it means being satisfied with a photocopied or hastily translated book with a typo from the title and a more than random layout.



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