Art Fair and Book Fair

Yesterday I ventured out to the annual Art Fair being held at the Tuyup Convention Center located at a far end of town. Over 100 galleries were represented with a wide range of art, primarily modern art by current artists. I did see a Dutch and an Italian gallery, the balance being Turkish. $4000 was the price tag on the paintings I was arracted to, but I made no purchase. Running concurrently with the art fair is the book fair. Had I been in attendance earlier in the week, I may have seen the father and daughter pair, John and Maureen Freely,

who write about Istanbul and Turkey. Maureen also has translated recent novels of Orhan Pamuk and I hope she is busy working on his novel recently published in Turkish.

Most of the vendors at the book fair were selling academic text books for discounts between 20% and 40%. Bus loads of students were dropped off with lists of books to buy. The USA also had a spot at the fair, with pamphlets on topics such as democracy, freedom and human rights. Your tax dollars at work!

The shuttle bus I took to the fair grounds was no where to be found when I was ready to head home. So I followed the masses to the public bus, which would take me to the Metrobus, which speeds along special lanes regardless of traffic volume. I was eager to try this Metrobus, to see if it might be a possibility for going to the airport. The student sitting next to me had also been to the book fair and one by one, opened up all her new books and smelt the print with her nose to the pages. She then read the beginning of each book and returned it to the bag. All the time with a big smile on her face - a happy reader!