The Cape Town Book Fair will be held from 14 to 17 June at the Cape Town International Convention Centre. Festival Director Vanessa Badroodien has confirmed that trade stands, comprising publishers, booksellers and more are already sold out. There are 277 registered exhibitors as per the website of the Cape Town book fair. Indian exhibitors include Abhinav Publications, AITBS publications, Aagean offset printers, B Jain publishing, Cambridge University Press India Pvt Ltd., Diamond pocket books, Har-Anand Publication Pvt Ltd and others.

The fair’s primary objective is to provide an intellectual forum for all sectors of the book industry within South Africa and those interested in Africa. They will be able to showcase their content, products, and services and discuss the challenges of the industry in a globally benchmarked environment. The Cape Town Book Fair aims to establish a viable commercial rights market place, a vibrant meeting place and become a catalyst for support to the development of publishing in South Africa and the rest of the continent.

In support of these objectives, Cape Town BF will endorse, collaborate and organize a series of workshops and forums to achieve one of its key objectives --- introducing Africa as a place of literary origination. Participants and collaborators to these events will include South African and African government officials and policy makers, authors from around the world, as well as new and established South African authors. 
Two major international authors have already confirmed they will be attending --Alexander McCall Smith ,Rhodesian born British author of the “Number 1 Ladies Detective agency series “who says, “As an author, I find book fairs offer a wonderful opportunity to hear from readers. If you are making any mistakes, readers will tell you; if you’re getting anything right, they’ll also tell you. But they are also opportunities to have fun -- to share enthusiasms that one has and to get together with like-minded people. “The other author coming to Cape Town is Marina Lewycka, a British novelist of Ukrainian origin and author of “A Short History of Tractors” and “Two Caravans” in Ukrainian. She will join a host of local and other African writers as they talk about the power of words to create worlds in a program that will offer more than 370 talks and debates and a bigger children’s zone. The book fair takes place under the auspices of the Publishers’ Association of South Africa in co-operation with the Frankfurter Buchmesse.