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Frankfurter Buchmesse, the world's leading venue for printed and digital content, has opened a book exhibition in Ghana to expose children to a wide array of German books to help facilitate knowledge and cultural exchange between Ghana and Germany.
The six-week exhibition, which is in collaboration with the Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC), is part of activities marking Accra the UNESCO Book Capital 2023.
The exhibition also seeks to bring together Ghanaian book industry players to introduce to them to the quality of books that are produced in Germany to help infuse those standards in the local industry.
At the opening of the exhibition at the National Children's Library in Accra, the Head of Development Cooperation and German Embassy, Franziska Jebens, said the exhibition would help introduce famous German books to Ghanaian readers and also establish a platform for readers from both countries to know more about each other’s books.
She gave an assurance that if the initiative was able to garner a lot of interest, there would be a whole series of exchanges between her country and Ghana.
Ms Jebens further encouraged Ghanaian students to read more books for self-development and also improve their imaginations.
“In our society back in Germany, we often grow up alone as kids because our families’ structures are different.
Mine was worse because I was a single child and I was mostly alone after school so my parents made sure I kept myself busy by reading a lot of books.
“It helped me to develop a lot of passion for reading new books and I love the feeling I got from reading stories.
The books helped shaped my childhood and because of them, I always wanted to discover the world so I pursued my dream and that is why I find myself in Ghana,” Ms Jebens recounted.
The Executive Director of the Ghana Book Development Council (GBDC), Ernesticia Lartey Asuinura, said the event was symbolic as it was the first time the book industries, in both Ghana and Germany, were collaborating on such an initiative.
She reiterated that it was the beginning of a long journey because the Ghana book industry was seeking to have a long-term relationship with the Frankfurt Buchmesse.
“We are exhibiting German books in Accra to get the Ghanaian public to know what sort of books are published and produced in Germany and how best we can get some of those book translated into English and other Ghanaian languages so that our children get to know about German stories.
“We also want our publishing industry to see that quality and the kind of books that are produced in Germany so that they also ensure that the books produced in Ghana meet those standards,” Mrs Asuinura said.
She said the GBDC was also reaching out to the world to see how Ghana could collaborate with the rest of the book industry to grow to help the local industry.
