{"id":188588,"date":"2025-10-04T02:10:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T02:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188588\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T02:10:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T02:10:07","slug":"here-we-are-again-in-2025-montreal-arabic-book-fair-returns-for-2nd-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/188588\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Here we are again in 2025’: Montreal Arabic Book Fair returns for 2nd edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Montreal Speaks Arabic\u2019, that\u2019s the slogan for the Montreal Arab Book Fair, which is now officially registered as an annual event for many years to come by the Canadian government. <\/p>\n

Labelled as new initiative and the first of its kind in Canada in 2022, the Arabic Book Fair made a grand return after three years away. The event launched on Friday night and runs through the weekend in Montreal\u2019s Cote-des-Neiges borough.<\/p>\n

Dubbed the most important Arab Cultural Event in Montreal by the Association of Public Services for the Integration of Immigrants (SPDI), they say that this year\u2019s edition aims to bring together Arab intellectuals in a space where they can, share dialogue and strengthen ties within the community.<\/p>\n

\"\"A woman looking at a book on opening night of the second edition of the Montreal Arabic Book Fair in C\u00f4te-des-Neiges. (Corinne Boyer, CityNews)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need this gathering and we need the people to come around and see what their needs are,\u201d said Sarah Mohamed, CEO of Tamara Books, a publishing house that produces books for all ages.<\/p>\n

As Mohamed puts it, these gatherings allow publishing houses like hers and those alike to see what their clientele expects in publishing so they can fill the gap of what\u2019s really needed in the market.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Yazid Rahmouni, owner of the Almaziri Publishing House in Tunisia and now with a newly established location in Ottawa, explains the challenges faced by both newly arrived immigrants and those long established, who struggle to find books written in Arabic. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese books, it\u2019s not easy to find them, especially in the West, you know, not in Arabic countries,\u201d said Yazid Rahmouni, owner of the Almaziri Publishing House. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why when I bring these kind of books here, and people, they tell me, wow, it\u2019s something, we\u2019re really excited to see these kinds of books in here,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\"\"A woman looks on as organizers of the second Montreal Arabic Book Fair make speeches in front of attendees. (Corinne Boyer, CityNews)<\/p>\n

After also determining a strong need for children\u2019s books for Arabic families within the community, organizers say they chose to include many publishers this year, like Sarah Mohamed\u2019s \u2018Tamara Books\u2019, that offer a wide array of children\u2019s titles to choose from.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst we started for children books in three languages, Arabic, French and English. And also we have some bilingual books to help children to learn Arabic by comparing the two languages together,\u201d said Mohamed.<\/p>\n

After attending the Montreal Arabic Book Fair at its inception back in 2022, Mohamed recalls the positive remarks she received from parents who struggled to teach Arabic to their children born in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cArabic is a very hard language to learn, so we are focusing on adding very attractive illustrations,\u201d said Mohamed.<\/p>\n

The goal she says, is to get children to start reading in Arabic, which she encourages them to do not only through illustrations, but also through interactive exercises included in her books.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sarah Mohamed, CEO of Tamara Books, looking through one of the children\u2019s books her publishing house helped to produce, that she is now selling at the Montreal Arabic Book Fair this weekend. (Corinne Boyer, CityNews)<\/p>\n

Not only does the fair include many titles for all age groups, but it also offers a wide range, from educational books to help non-Arabic speakers learn their native language to fiction novels for simple entertainment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are now developing more by adding titles for young adults, and we are focusing on this particular age for adventure books, mystery books, because this is the age that search for these topics, and we started also for books for adults, like novels, short stories and so on,\u201d explained Mohamed.<\/p>\n

Rahmouni says he also has books for all ages, but as a former teacher in College, he can\u2019t help but offer more books that elicit a certain type of skill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe focus a lot on critical thinking books. So it\u2019s something new here, I believe in Montreal or in Canada in general. So, I think it\u2019s a good opportunity for the readers to see these kinds of books here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2018Montreal Speaks Arabic\u2019, that\u2019s the slogan for the Montreal Arab Book Fair, which is now officially registered as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[353,49,48,75],"class_list":["post-188588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}