Lisbon residents know the ritual well: from the end of May until mid-June, Eduardo VII Park turns into the country’s biggest bookshop, a paradise for any book lover, with tens of thousands of titles to choose from. This year, the Book Fair has 350 stands hosted by 128 participants, representing around 900 publishing brands in total.
According to the organisers, the last five editions have attracted an average of 850,000 visitors. Days like the 4 June public holiday, when a midweek day off coincided with fine weather, will certainly have helped that average to be reached again – or even surpassed – this year.
While a long queue of young people waited patiently for an autograph and a quick chat with German-American author S.T. Ashman, others wandered around Praça Leya, where several generations and very different styles of writers mingled, from Hugo Van Der Ding and Rodrigo Guedes de Carvalho to Daniel Sampaio, Cristina Norton, Fernando Pinto Amaral, Nuno Rogeiro and acclaimed Angolan author Pepetela, winner of the Camões Prize in 1997.
‘Year after year there are more people, more crowds, and that is good. It is very good, because people say no one reads any more and that there are fewer and fewer readers. That is partly true but, on the other hand, there are pockets of resistance, let us say, and this is an example. It is a celebration, exactly as we like it to be. Books are a celebration,’ Pepetela tells Euronews.
For Carla Pais, a Portuguese writer living in France, the trip to Portugal to take part in the Book Fair and other events coincides with the launch of her latest novel, A Sombra das Árvores no Inverno, which won last year’s Leya Prize (Portugal’s biggest award for unpublished books), and comes shortly after she also brought out a poetry collection, A Brutalidade do Movimento Conjugado.
‘I am very pleasantly surprised to see so many people from so many different generations, with children, older people, parents, grandparents and grandchildren,’ Carla Pais tells Euronews. ‘Several generations come together and share the same space, which is this passion for books and literature.’
The highlight of the day was, without doubt, the appearance of US author Siri Hustvedt to present the Portuguese edition of Fantasmas, the memoir in which she looks back on more than 40 years of life together with one of the most important writers of recent decades, Paul Auster, who died in 2024. The event, hosted by Hustvedt herself and her translator Tânia Ganho (also a writer), drew one of the biggest crowds of this fair, with many people forced to stand or sit on the ground because there were so few seats.
Paulo Santos, 54, a senior public sector manager, is an avid reader of Auster and Hustvedt and did not want to miss the chance to exchange a few words, however brief, with the writer. ‘Siri is one of the links that keep Auster present, beyond his extensive body of work,’ he tells Euronews. ‘After Auster passed away, I felt the need to explore Siri’s work, even though the process is still very much in its early stages, as I have so far read only one of her books, Elegia para um Americano. Auster is an author who has been with me for many years, and I am drawn to the atmosphere of his fiction, having read and reread almost all of his work. Siri shares some common ground in a style of writing that blends memory, identity and reflection,’ he adds.
Now in its 96th edition, the Lisbon Book Fair is organised by the Portuguese Publishers and Booksellers Association (APEL), chaired by Miguel Pauseiro. ‘There will always be those who say they are selling less than last year and others who say they are selling more. But what matters to us is that this is a moment of celebration, a celebration of books, so that books can once again become central to our lives,’ Pauseiro tells Euronews.
APEL’s management has not escaped criticism following the petition launched by DNL Convergência (source in Portuguese), a small publishing group which, in addition to its own imprints, also distributes books from several other small independent publishers, protesting against its announced exclusion from this year’s edition.
The space occupied by four major publishing groups – Leya, Porto Editora, Penguin and Presença – does not go unnoticed by visitors to the fair. Pauseiro rejects the criticism, pointing out that some of these groups represent around 15 imprints: ‘I can assure you that the big groups, as they are called, have a presence at the Lisbon Book Fair that is below their market share, whether in terms of sales or in terms of titles published,’ he says.
‘We want more – that much I can guarantee. We want more publishers at the fair, more authors, more titles. But we have to create the conditions for that. The Book Fair is reaching the limits of its structure in terms of occupying Eduardo VII Park, and that will force APEL to make choices, but also the publishers themselves to make choices,’ he adds. ‘Right now, we have events here involving more than 1,100 authors, so there is no lack of diversity.’
This year there are five new participants at the Book Fair.
As for those registered for the 2025 edition, four did not renew their registration and six had their request for a stand turned down – three because they mainly sell games and other products that are not strictly books, and another three for reasons the APEL president did not wish to elaborate on. When it comes to these cases, which include DNL Convergência, Pauseiro insists there is no bitterness: ‘There is no acrimony, no animosity, no hard feelings. In future we will see how we can bring these participants back on board, while complying with the criteria and rules of the Lisbon Book Fair,’ he says.
The Lisbon Book Fair runs until Sunday 14 June.