14th BOOK FAIR(Y) IN ISTRIA
Pula Festival of Books and Authors

Theme: Literary Nomads

4th – 11th December 2008
House of Croatian Defenders

The grand opening of the 14th Book Fair(y) in Istria entailed a performance directed by Matija Ferlin, with the participation of Ivana Roščić, Roberta Milevoj, Andrea Gotovina, and Kazuhiro Tamari.

A new literary manifestation, the Festival of Children's Literature Monte Librić, was inaugurated and held parallelly with the Book Fair(y). At Monte Librić, more than 50 publishers displayed the largest selection of children's books by that day, and most prominent Croatian children's books' authors told their stories to the children who visited the Festival.

Moreover, a new program, titled Authors from the Neighbourhood, was created to bring together the authors and publishers from the region, concretely from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. Along with the 50 publishers from the abovementioned countries, 250 Croatian publishers displayed 18,500 book titles at the Fair.

Two exhibitions took place at the Pula's Forum Square – the exhibition by Mirko Ilić, world-renowned Croatian designer, Paul Buckley, the art director of Penguin Books, and Ingsu Liu, the art director of W. W. Norton Books & Co., and the exhibition of 50 most beautiful American books selected by the AIGA (the oldest and largest American designers' association), titled The Factory of Beautiful Books. Along with the inaugural presentation of the project BetWeen by the musician Darko Rundek, the Croatian premiere of the movie The Tour by the Serbian film director Goran Marković took place at the Pula's Fair.

The highlight of the Fair, expectedly so, was the Cyclops Award Ceremony, which took place on 10th December at the Hotel Histria.