Derry Radical Bookfair

This coming weekend will see Derry Radical Bookfair hosting an important literary and cultural event in the city.

This coming Saturday 28th January, the city will host it's first ever radical bookfair at Pilots Row Community Centre in Rossville Street.

A number of independent book publishers and distributors from across Ireland, Scotland and England along with several local booksellers will gather at the Bogside venue for the one day event.

A spokesperson for the Derry Radical Bookfair said:

The idea behind creating our own radical bookfair in Derry comes after years of successful bookfairs in both London and Dublin as well as other major cities around the world. The initial concept had grown out of the first ever Anarchist Bookfairs in London back in the early 1980's as part of an effort to provide solidarity and support to both independent, radical booksellers and publishers at that time who helped produce and distribute important and valuable political texts relating to feminist, anarchist, queer, Marxist and environmentalist thinking.

Over the last number of decades that idea has spread to almost every major city around the world of which Derry will now also be included. The idea locally has spread to include local booksellers as well as local and international publishers and distributors which will look at many forms of radical ideas such as queer liberation, anarchism, republicanism and Marxism. There will be locally produced books and material relating to Irish politics and labour history, but just as equally as important is our vast wealth books chronicling our own social history will be on display."

There will be a number of talks and book launches during the one day event examining Derry's own radical past by local lecturer and historian Dr. Emmet O'Connor, an eyewitness account of current developments in Kurdistan by an Irish activist in Revolution in Rojava, and another talk by leading black activist Bob Brown, a founding member Black Panthers looking back at the revolutionary movement 50 years on.

This will be an amazing event for those of us across the Derry and the northwest to access some literature and books which are not normally found in the usual multinational bookshops on the high street. It will also be an opportunity for all types of independent book sellers and publishers to also network and create important links not normally available locally.

Derry Radical Bookfair kicks off on Saturday 28th January from 12pm until 5pm at the Pilots Row Community Centre in Rossville street. See you all there!