The International Belgrade Books Fair held from October 22nd to 29th, gathered around 500 exhibitors with 50 of them from abroad. Austrian writer and publicist Karl Markus Gauß and Serbian academician Mira Vuksanovic spoke at the opening ceremony. 

The honorable guest of the 62nd festival of written word with the slogan “The Key is in the Books” was German language and the program “Four countries, one language” was presented by Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Visitors were presented with around 1,000 books with 350 brand new editions included of contemporary authors from all four countries.

The star of this year’s Fair was the Nobel Prize winner Herta Müller as well as guests involved in the program “Four countries, one language”  like Marcel Bayer, Wladimir Kaminer, Jan Wagner, Volker Kucher, Ingo Schulze, Arno Camenisch, Dana Grigorcea , Melinda Nadj Abonji, Jonas Lüscher, Theresa Präauer, Valentin Groebner, Lutz Rathenow, Kathrin Röggla.

Various programs during the Fair marked 800 years since the crowning of Stefan the First-Crowned, 250 years of Filip Vishnyic, 125 years since Ivo Andric’s birth, 150 years since the death of Charles Bodler, the century since the death of Vladislav Petkovic Dis and Milutin Boyic, 170 years of Niegosh’s  “The Mountain Wreath”, five decades since the first publication of the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and ” Death and the Dervish” by Mesha Selimovic.

Besides this year’s the numerous publishers the Karic Foundation reminded readers of some old titles as well as our new editions.

One of the promoted books that lived its premiere at the Belgrade Books Fair was “Bogoljub’s Green Salad”.  The author is Mirko Stamenkovic, former journalist and editor-in-chief of the most-published magazines in former Yugoslavia and the person that knows very well the Karic family.

Stamenkovic pointed out at the book presentation that readers have to buy and read the book in order to realize the significance of Bogoljub Karic’s work so far.

He confessed to the visitors that one small but very important detail he left out  and that is: “Behind every successful woman, there is a successful man. Yes, you’ve heard me! I didn’t make a mistake; I have my reasons to change it.”

Beside the members of the Karic family, friends and colleagues, a crowd of curious visitors and other exhibitors visited the promotion of the book.

Beside the author, the book was commented by Misha Ciric, the founder of the International Business Club “Diaspora group”and the project ” Packaged nostalgia “, prof. dr. Kostadin Pushar, Special Advisor  to the Univesity on peace and development as well as the emiritus professor of the Karic Brothers University, Borislav Miljanovic, former BK Television reporter, Doctor of Communication and Director of Represent System.

However, visitors at our stand waited with curiosity to hear Mr Bogoljub Karic.

“Mirko Stamenkovic has been following our work for decades and for those who do not know we were the first to found private family company in former Yugoslavia, almost five decades ago.

We were fortunate that the President Tito visited our city of Peja and liked what we’ve done as a family. He considered that family businesses can only contribute to the development of the country and said that we should be helped in whatever we needed for our business. Sreten, Dragomir, Zoran, Olivera and myself opened five companies in just four years. We started with five people and then we grew more and more. Marshal Tito would talk about our family business as an example of good work at the meetings with representatives from the Soviet Union which was quite an honor. Shortly after we visited Russia and so we started our Russian cooperation. We are the first Serbs to have established private companies in Russia and today we are one of the biggest companies. ” said Bogoljub Karic, adding that the Karic family is one true and accomplished family.

Visitors of our book stand had the opportunity to meet Bogoljub Karic in person and purchase his signed book.

This year at the 62nd Books Fair the Karic Foundation hosted all of our friends and admirers of the written word in a very festive mood at our book stand.