Vietnamese publishing industry discussed at 17th Venezuela Int’l Book Fair
Hanoi (VNA) – The Embassy of
Vietnam in Venezuela held a seminar on the Vietnamese
publishing industry’s outstanding
features in both virtually and in-person forms on November 9 as part of the 17th Venezuela
International Book Fair (FILVEN 2021).
Addressing
the seminar, Dr Tran Doan Lam, former director of The Gioi Publishing House,
said that Vietnam attending the event as a guest of honour at Venezuela’s biggest cultural event of the year proved that the two countries,
despite being far apart geographically but very close in terms of love for
reading culture, share similar history with aspiration for freedom,
independence, self-reliance, courage and patriotism.
Lam
presented an overview of the main stages of development of the writing and
publishing industry in Vietnam, from moc ban (woodblocks) printing to making
use of the do (poonah) trees to make the unique paper suitable for printing and
writing in about the 2nd century BC, or the creation of the Nom script
in literary works in the 10th century, to the birth of world-renowned classical literary works
such as the Tales of Kieu by Nguyen Du in the 18th century.
The
Vietnamese speaker said that in the Middle Ages, there were villages specialising in book printing with wooden planks, mainly
near the Thang Long Citadel (now Hanoi). Among them, 3,050 woodblocks preserved in Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in the northern province of Bac Giang were recognised by the United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as the World Documentary Heritage
in the Memory of the World Programme.
Vietnam has had over 60 publishing houses since 1952, plus about 1,500 printing establishments and 13,700 bookstores across the country. Every year, on the occasion of Vietnam Book Day (April 21),
major book fairs are held in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, attracting the participation
of Vietnamese and international publishers.
At the event, President of the Venezuela-Vietnam Friendship Association Carolus Wimmer
expressed his desire to cooperate with the The Gioi Publishing House to give more
Vietnamese books to Venezuelan readers to meet their demand for studying the history,
culture, country and people of Vietnam./.