Coming in the context of the imperialists’ "war against terrorism" and the upsurge in the Palestinian struggle, interest was high in political literature. Protesting U.S. president George Bush’s designation of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as the "axis of evil," Iranians had poured into the streets this past February on the anniversary of the country’s 1979 revolution.

This spring more demonstrations were held in cities and towns in support of the Palestinian people and their struggle has been a main news story in the media.

At the book fair a special hall was set aside for Palestine. It presented books on Palestinian history and struggle, and huge video screens showed scenes of recent Palestinian resistance to the Israeli military assaults.

The fair was held in northern Tehran at the city’s permanent fair grounds on the slopes of the Alborz mountains. There was an atmosphere of a national cultural festival as the press, radio, and television gave wide coverage to the event, introducing native publishers and those from around the world, mainly from Arab countries and Europe.  
 
Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kazahkstan
Parallel events were organized during the book fair. A press fair presented the growing number of magazines and newspapers published in the cities and towns across the country. Some local papers carried articles in languages other than Farsi, the official language in Iran.

Akhtar, a newspaper published in Tabriz, had articles and poetry in Azerbaijani Turkish. Special halls were designated for Afghanistan and Tajikistan, where Farsi is also a major language. At those halls panel discussions on literature and history were held, and poets from each country read and discussed their poems. Another event took place introducing the literature and libraries in the Turkic-speaking Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan.

To make it possible for adults to participate fully in the book fair, a large center was set aside for children. There they could choose the activities they wanted to be engaged in, ranging from puppet shows, plays, and story telling to reading, painting, calligraphy, and clay modeling. They received lessons in biology, using microscopes, and were introduced to astronomy in a small planetarium built for that purpose. At any one time you could see hundreds of children busily engaged.  
 
Government subsidy for books
This was the 15th annual book fair. Foreign books published in the last two years were subsidized by the Iranian government as much as 70 percent to compensate for the unequal rate of exchange that makes these texts so costly in semicolonial countries. The publishers received the full cover price of the book. Foreign books published prior to 2000 were on sale in a different hall for cash payment in rials, the national currency. While only college students, teachers, researchers, and other professionals are eligible to buy books in the subsidized hall, anyone can buy books in the unsubsidized hall.

Pathfinder Distribution in London, a participant in the fair for the last 10 years, had books in both the subsidized and unsubsidized halls. The company offered discounts in the unsubsidized hall. More than 600 books and pamphlets were sold over a period of 10 days.

A lot of the visitors to the two Pathfinder stands wanted books about the Palestinian struggle and the related Jewish question. A young airline mechanic came up and asked if Pathfinder had anything accurate on the Middle East conflict, saying he didn’t trust books from the imperialist countries. He ended up getting Israel’s War Against the Palestinian People, Israel: A Colonial- Settler State? and Capitalism’s World Disorder. He bought the latter book after being shown a passage about the Bolsheviks’ attitude in Lenin’s time toward Muslims.

A student who had read Malcolm X’s February 1965: The Final Speeches in his university library took a look at Socialists and the Fight against Anti-Semitism. He commented that "our enemy is Israel, not the Jewish people."

A high school teacher from a Kurdish town near the border with Iraq came with his students. "I love Pathfinder books," he said. "They’re all by fighters, of all the different nationalities." Students from Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Malaysia, and Afghanistan also visited the stand.  
 
Media interest
Media interest in Pathfinder was a little higher than previous years. Representatives of Pathfinder Distribution gave nine interviews in all: five to TV stations, one on a live national radio program for youth, one to the official book fair newspaper, and two to news agencies. The requests continued right up to the final day.

One of the interviews was by the local stringer for CNN International. Quite a number of students of technical subjects came to the stands in search of political works. Three students of chemical engineering told Pathfinder staff that for them reading about the Cuban Revolution was a hobby. They were disappointed that To Speak the Truth: Why Washington’ s ‘Cold War’ against Cuba Doesn’t End, featuring speeches by Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara, had sold out at the unsubsidized stand. An engineering student, who has visited the booth over previous years, returned this year and explained he usually spends about half the quota he is allowed on his course subjects and the other half on political books. He asked about books by Jack Barnes and political developments in the United States, writing down the details of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution and Capi-talism’s World Disorder. Other books by Barnes that were sold included three copies of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics.

Pathfinder books on the Cuban Revolution were the most popular, especially titles by Ernesto Che Guevara. Che Guevara Talks to Young People in English and Spanish was the best selling title, for the second year in a row.

The 10 other top sellers were Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women by Mary-Alice Waters; The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes; The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels; New International no. 10 featuring the article "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War" by Barnes; Israel: A Colonial-Settler State? by Maxime Rodinson; Capitalism’s World Disorder by Barnes; How Can the Jews Survive? by George Novack; The Jewish Question by Abram Leon; Marxism and Terrorism by Leon Trotsky; and Problems of Women’s Liberation by Evelyn Reed.

Readers purchased nearly 300 books at Pathfinder Distribution’s unsubsidized stand. The librarian from a pharmaceutical factory bought five books, most of them about U.S. politics. Four sets of Capital by Marx and Engels were purchased, as well as numerous other titles by the founders of the communist movement.

Reportedly more than 500 copies of Pathfinder titles that are translated into Farsi were sold in the Farsi section of the book fair. Two publishing houses presented three new translations of Pathfinder books at the fair: Problems of Women’s Liberation, The Long View of History by Novack, and Marxism and Terrorism by Trotsky. The latter sold 177 copies during the fair.

The third edition of the Farsi translation of Socialism and Man in Cuba by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, came out just before the fair and sold 95 copies. The second edition of A Sea Change in Working-Class Politics, by Barnes, also just published, sold 14 copies.  
 
 
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