Leipzig Book Fair cancelled for a second year

Leipzig Book Fair, the main spring event for the German book industry, has been cancelled for the second year running owing to the pandemic.

Organizers had delayed the event from its traditional date in mid-March to the end of May, but on Friday (29th January) fair director Oliver Zille announced that the health risk was still considered to be too high. Instead a digital reading festival is being prepared.

In a normal year the Leipzig fair, including the Manga-Comic-Convention and its popular reading festival Leipzig liest, attracts close to 300,000 visitors and is a must-show for German trade publishers who usually bring hundreds of authors to the east German city.