BETWEEN MERCHANTS AND ENTHUSIASTS
The Book

Even those who completely forget it during the year, remember it in October. Publishers, writers, readers, printers, even those piloting cultural policy think about it. There are many book fairs today. Small, street, holiday, city ones, those named after seasons, these and that. However, this October one – the great, Belgrade, international book fair – remains beyond comparison.
It is one of the two or three most visited fairs at the Belgrade Fairground and in the whole region. Always, even in those difficult years of war, it gathered hundreds of thousands of people! The people of books and the others. It has special rituals, social games, markets, jests of merchants and feints. Everyone deals with what fits him. However, we also know many of those quiet young enthusiasts who save during the whole year in order to be here in October and buy books they want and wait for so long. Books which, they know, will compensate everything they sacrificed.
In the eyes and hearts of those dear enthusiasts burns the flame which will once be able to warm up the whole nation. They are better than all those you have been seeing on television between two book fairs. They, marginalized, still unknown, completely dedicated, are the ultimate defenders of meaning.
For them it is worth writing and doing this job.