Buch Wien 2025 opened at Messe Wien

"The fair is bigger this year than ever before. That makes us proud," said Benedikt Föger, President of the Austrian Publishers and Booksellers Association (HVB), in his welcoming remarks at Buch Wien 2025. "We expect more visitors than ever." Vienna's City Councillor for Culture, Veronica Kaup-Hasler (SPÖ), arrived late "from an urgent budget negotiation" to the book fair and stated: "The fight was worth it."

Babler at the Opening of Buch Wien 2025: "Literature Nourishes Empathy!"

Culture Minister Andreas Babler (SPÖ), who opened Buch Wien for the first time, said: "These are damn difficult times we are living in today." One war follows the next, climate disasters and authoritarian tendencies trouble us, democracy is subjected to stress tests, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence is unsettling. "The role of literature is very important, a special one, in such a crisis-ridden time," said the Vice Chancellor. "Literature nourishes empathy!" And empathy makes democracy more resilient. "Literature sharpens the mind and warms the heart," Babler summarized and wished "a lot of fun in the coming days."

Shila Behjat, who has lived as a correspondent in London and as a freelance journalist in India, and achieved great success in 2024 with her book "Raising Sons as a Feminist," began her opening speech with a scandal in Persia in 1852: The poet and scholar Tahirih Qurratul Ayn "appeared at a gathering with other clerics without a head covering, was imprisoned for it, and was eventually executed, strangled with that very headscarf." Her last sentence is documented, said Behjat: "You can kill me, but you cannot stop the progress of women."

Behjat: "It's About the Freedom of All."

Subsequently, the opening speaker emphasized above all: "Women's rights and freedom rights do not just go hand in hand, as the saying goes. They are identical." She referred, among other things, to the revolution of 1848 and democracy movements in recent years in Iran and Belarus, in Poland and Sudan, which were led by women. "The men join them. And these protests also have one thing in common: They do not end with the defense of women's freedom. It's about the freedom of all."

Therefore, said Behjat, it is not simply about giving women more positions of power, but about distributing power better overall, making society fairer. "The democracy movements led by women also allow for a new assessment of what the fight for democracy can look like. They go hand in hand with a new appreciation of work at the 'other end,' where there is no institutional power. Civil resistance shaped by women. It reminds us where democracy begins and ends." For, as Behjat said: "The fight of women is not an additional chapter, it is the main line. It is not just a symbol, but the measure of whether a society is truly free."

Young & New Adult Section at Buch Wien 2025 with Its Own Stage

This year's edition of the book fair, which traditionally transitioned into the Long Night of Books after the official opening, is larger than ever before and, for the first time, with an additional 5,000 square meters, also represented in Hall C of the Messe Wien. There, the booming Young & New Adult section has its own stage for "books, encounters, and fan moments." Last year, 65,000 visitors at the 16th edition of the fair set an attendance record.

(APA/Red)

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