Jointly organised by the Tibet People’s Publishing House and Newspaper, Centre of Tibet and China, and Tibetan Bookshop, the book fair started on Oct 11 and will go on until Oct 15.

The fair aims to introduce Nepali readers to a variety of works by Tibetan and Chinese authors (both classical and modern), and has a sizable collection of books on a variety of topics ranging from literature and philosophy to medicine, politics and economics. But most of the books on sale are either in Chinese or Tibetan, with only a few translations available in English and hardly anything in Nepali.

“I came to the fair expecting some good English translations of classical Chinese literature. But all I could find were books in Chinese and Tibetan,” said a disappointed visitor, Rameshwar Raj Mishra.

With the burgeoning of Nepali readership, which is also becoming more eclectic, it’s inevitable that different countries and publication houses will organise such fairs to widen their reach. The Chinese Book Fair 2014 is a welcome sign in that regard.