For three days starting this Friday, Tbilisi New Year Book Festival will reveal best of the past year’s literature while also offering book enthusiasts to enjoy “unprecedented sale” for new works and classics. Around 30 publishing houses and bookstores will present brand-new books in all genres, including both local authors and translations of foreign-language works. Hosting the festival’s largest edition yet, the Georgian Publishers and Booksellers Association (GPBA) will organise it at the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia.

Within around 70 events of the festival, fiction and nonfiction literature will be found on stalls for visitors, while authors and translators will look to share their experience and knowledge in public talks. The GPBA will launch the fourth edition of the festival by awarding best-selling publications of the year, revealing winners in five categories. The nominations include best-selling Georgian and foreign-language works as well as children’s book and nonfiction publication of the year and a special prize for contribution to promotion of literature.

Ahead of the festival’s launch, GPBA chairperson Mariam Kasradze told TV Pirveli channel that organisers would also invite visitors to attend and participate in public talks in themed rooms of the Parliamentary Library. The talks will feature authors Zura Abashidze and Guram Matskhonashvili in a Q&A session, while translator Maia Badridze will talk about postwar German literature in its search for new identity. The Library and two literature-focused schools will also host activities for children visiting the three-day festival. The young visitors will find literature-themed games and discover prizes for accomplishing challenges.Set to run from December 22-24, Tbilisi New Year Book Festival is one of two book events hosted by the GPBA in Georgia. The Association also annually organises Tbilisi International Book Fair.