The International Book Fair and Literary Festival Book World Prague is the biggest celebration of literature in the Czech Republic. Central and East European Book Market, which was established two years ago with our support, is a part of the event for the third time. CEE Book Market serves as a meeting-place and an experience sharing platform for book industry professionals in Central and East European countries. In 2026 the Czech Republic will be the guest of honour at Frankfurter Buchmesse, the world’s largest book fair, and CEE Book Market is one of the institutions that will represent the country there.
Book World 2025
Donation beneficiary
Book World
Support date
December 2024
Why we support the project
- Book World Prague is the biggest annual literature and book industry event in the Czech Republic
- Central and East European Book Market aspires to make the festival a meeting point for professionals in the international trade in book rights for Central and Eastern Europe, and the two previous editions show that this aspiration is being fulfilled
- Book World and CEE Book Market will represent the Czech Republic at the world’s largest book fair, Buchmesse, in Frankfurt in 2026
About the project
Book World Prague has been the biggest book industry event in the Czech Republic for 30 years, drawing in over 50,000 people to the Prague Exhibition Centre over four days. It regularly features around 400 exhibitors and 800 writers, illustrators, translators, experts and other actors in the book industry, who participate in around five hundred events accompanying the trade fair. Guests from 40 countries take part in the trade fair and festival.
The PPF Foundation’s cooperation with Book World centres on three-year support for the Central and East European Book Market project which the organisers launched two years ago. The festival aspires to showcase the Central and East European region in the international trade in book rights. This will be facilitated by the CEE Book Market platform, which serves as a meeting-place and networking platform for professionals in the field, mainly publishers and literary agents, from all over the world.
The Central and East European Book Market is a key project for Book World. It helps us galvanise the foreign rights and book licensing trade. This is particularly important at a time when the Czech Republic will be the guest of honour at the world’s largest book fair in Frankfurt in 2026. Thanks to the PPF Foundation’s support, our platform now bears comparison with anything the European scene has to offer.
– Radovan Auer, Director of the International Book Fair and Literary Festival Book World Prague
Interest in this festival project has grown significantly since the pilot year, which confirms its importance for the international book rights trade in our region. Last year around 60 foreign participants took part. The number of publishers visiting CEE Book Market is also rising.
Partly thanks to our support, the industry section of Book World has experienced rapid growth from almost nothing to reach a world-class professional level. It is thus becoming a strong platform that will be able to represent us with dignity at the world’s largest book fair, Frankfurter Buchmesse, where the Czech Republic will be the guest of honour in 2026.
The programme of this year’s CEE Book Market will take place on 15 and 16 May 2025 in the Bohemia Pavilion at the Prague Exhibition Centre. So far, participants from a total of 24 countries have registered. The core of the event remains the business meetings, which, in the two years of CEEBM’s existence, have already borne fruit in the form of Czech books being translated into other languages. In addition, the two-day programme will feature panel discussions on the role of literary agents in small markets and the impact of awards on the marketing of books by emerging authors. There will also be discussions on the current Czech literary scene and – with regard to this year’s guest of honor – the Portuguese literary scene.