BY MARCELLA FITZGERALD
TEHRAN, Iran - More than one million people attended the 10th Tehran International bookfair this year, held April 26- May 5. Most of the books presented were in Farsi, Arabic, and English, including titles from more than 1,300 Iranian publishers and 400 English-language publishers. More Romance- language foreign publishers took part this year as well, including a couple from France. The booth set up by Pathfinder Distribution, London, got a good response.

The bookfair was opened by outgoing Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and was covered in the national press as an important cultural and educational event. As in previous years, busloads of people came to the fair from all over Iran. Schools and colleges organized trips for students, bringing hundreds of thousands to buy books at rates subsidized by the government.

This is the sixth year Pathfinder books have been presented at the fair. Pathfinder representatives sold a broad range of books to young people, teachers, and soldiers, as well as to national institutions and research centers. Sales included 568 individual books and pamphlets plus two sets each of the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, the Collected Works of V.I. Lenin, and the Writings of Leon Trotsky.

One young man had bought Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution and New International no. 10 at the 1996 fair. When he came back this year he wanted to buy more of issues in the Marxist magazine New International series and a copy of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics - Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions, by Jack Barnes. This reader also bought some of the volumes in the series The Communist International in Lenin's Time, which records the history of the revolutionary workers movement in the first quarter of the 20th century.

There was a heightened interest in books by Malcolm X and on U.S. politics in general this year. On more than one occasion Malcolm X was the choice of young people who were from peasant backgrounds. Sale prices helped this trend, and the booth sold out of all but one of the Malcolm X titles and all five copies of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics. Other sales included books by Socialist Workers Party leaders James P. Cannon and Farrell Dobbs on the workers movement in the United States.

Five copies of Feminism and the Marxist Movement and six copies of U.S. Hands Off the Mideast! Cuba Speaks Out at the United Nations also sold out. The top sellers were The Communist Manifesto, by Marx and Engles; To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's `Cold War' Against Cuba Doesn't End, by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara; To See the Dawn: Baku 1920 - First Congress of the Peoples of the East from the series on the Communist International; By Any Means Necessary by Malcolm X; Malcolm X Talks to Young People; Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women, and the issues of New International containing "Imperialism's March toward Fascism and War" and "Opening Guns of World War III - Washington's assault on Iraq."

When she saw the Pathfinder booth, one participant commented to her friend, "Who says there are no books on women at the bookfair, here they are!" Several people stopped to ask about the election results in Britain, which brought the Labour Party into office. One or two explained that they were pleased and thought it would make a difference to world politics.

Pathfinder books have come to be known around the country. In addition to the international book fair, last year Pathfinder books were sold at six different regional bookfairs around the country. This year a wall display at Ferdowsi University in the city of Mashhad featured Engels's The Origin of Family, Private Property, and the State and three other Pathfinder titles. A bookstore in front of the Tehran University had the Farsi translation of the "Opening Guns of the World War III" in its window display.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home