Palestinian publisher and bookseller Samir Mansour has been awarded the IPA Prix Voltaire 2024 at an award ceremony of the 34th International Publishers Association Congress, during the book fair in Guadalajara. A special award went posthumously to Ukrainian writer Victoria Amelina. The Guadalajara International Book Fair in Mexico’s second-largest city Guadalajara, is the most important annual cultural event in the Spanish-speaking world, and with more than 2,600 exhibitors and some 800,000 visitors, the largest book fair in the Americas.
This year’s Prix Voltaire laureate, the Samir Mansour Bookshop for Printing and Publishing has been a critical part of the local community in Gaza, publishing the works of Palestinian authors and housing thousands of books in various languages. Destroyed in 2021 and rebuilt through community efforts, the bookshop has once again been hit by an Israeli airstrike. The bookshop has continued its efforts to bring books to Palestinian youth, visiting evacuation centers and providing books and gift packages to displaced children.
At the award ceremony on 5 December 2024, IPA president Karine Pansa said, “This year’s Prix Voltaire laureate and nominees embody publishers’ efforts to promote books and the dissemination of information to prevent conflict and foster peace, even while facing extreme dangers themselves. Their commitment to publishing and the dissemination of knowledge becomes a beacon of hope amidst immense devastation.”
Accepting the award, Samir Mansour delivered a video address. He said, “I would like to thank everyone who supported the IPA Prix Voltaire and the International Publishers Association. In 2021 my bookshop was completely destroyed. It was rebuilt in 2022. During the current war, the bookshop was destroyed again and the second branch of the library bookshop was destroyed as well. However, I am still continuing my work which I grew up with and was raised in since my childhood. I am still publishing despite being on the Gaza strip. God willing, we will continue to publish and print, no matter how difficult the circumstances we are living today. We will continue.”
The 35th biennial IPA Congress is set to take place in Kuala Lumpur in 2026, hosted by the Malaysian Book Publishers Association.
