Huge turnout brings hope for publishers at Sharjah Book Fair

The last couple of days at the 45th edition of the Sharjah International Book Fair 2026 saw a huge turnout of visitors, especially during the weekend, when each stall at the fair was surrounded by prospective buyers scouting for their favourite books and educational material.

Talking to Gulf Today, publishers and exhibitors from different countries at Expo Centre Sharjah shared their thoughts.

Tamil books

Karthikeyan Pugalendi, Director, Sixthsense Publications and third-generation publisher, has been representing over 50 publishers. “This is our seventh-time participation in the SIBF and we have brought books written by top writers from Tamil Nadu, India. Usually we bring over 3,000 titles to display at the book fair.”

He pointed that the response from the community was overwhelming on weekends and "we hope to get a good sale".

Mustafa Kamal Pasha represents Educational Publishing House India, celebrating 50 years of publishing books on a wide range of topics in the Urdu language. So far they have published over 6,000 titles.

Talking to Gulf Today, he says, “This is our first-time participation at the SIBF and we are showcasing a huge number of books published in Urdu with over 550 titles displaying and covering all major topics aimed to promote the Urdu language. Being here for the first time at the SIBF, we offer exclusive discounts on children's Urdu books as prices start at Dhs2. The maximum price of a book at our stall is around Dhs70."

Children during their visit to the Sharjah International Book Fair.

Pasha said they have been participating in book fairs around the world to promote Urdu as they attended such fairs in Cape Town, South Africa, Mauritius, Egypt, Morocco besides local fairs all over India.

Urdu readers declining

“We have seen a good number of visitors who showed great interest towards the Urdu collection but still we feel that the number of Urdu readers are declining all over the world due to many reasons. The Urdu language is beyond poetry but those who have academic backgrounds are not showing due interest to promote Urdu in their respective areas which should be changed,” he commented.

Muhammad Faizan of Naamak Publications, New Delhi is participating with the collection of books in Urdu, Hindi, English, Bengali, Kannada and many other regional languages. “We have recently published ‘Diwan-e-Iqbal’ for the first time in India. There are many small collections of prominent Urdu poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal with different names but it was time we published a complete collection of his poetic work and are receiving good response from Urdu lovers,” he said.

The firm has so far published over 200 titles since 2023 in different languages. “This is our second participation in any international book fair after the one in Bogota. Our mission is to promote Urdu and spread the love of the language. We are expecting the Indian community based in the UAE to express their love of Urdu by buying more books while schoolchildren also should have more Urdu books in their schools and home libraries,” he added.

The publisher is also extending discount options to various categories to boost sales of Urdu books. “There are discounts on children's books and other categories,” he added.

Brisk sales despite regional conflict

Anil Abraham, Sales Director, DC Books told that they have been representing more than 50 leading Indian publishers at the SIBF. “The number of visitors, especially families wanting to buy books for their school-going children, is tremendous during weekends. The book sales have increased, especially children's books, as every day we receive a huge number of students from different visiting schools and they show good response,” he added.

He mentioned in the current regional situation, "the response from the community to visit and buy books is relatively good and we are hoping the last days of the fair will bring more sales."

However, a representative of Robotic World, Harishanker R, said, “We are here at the SIBF to spread awareness as well as offering courses for children of age 5 to 18 on robotics learning, designing, artificial intelligence in classrooms. Parents and children who visited our stall at the SIBF also know about our courses and activities we offer at our institute. For visiting parents and students, we are showing them how robotics can provide students a better future,” he said.

He said that the SIBF was a good exposure opportunity for everyone who wanted to learn more about the robotics and their services. The stall presented printed materials and other learning guides for prospect students.