From August 27 to 31, the 2026 South China Book Festival grandly opened at Area B of the China Import and Export Fair Complex in Guangzhou. Themed "Reading in Lingnan, Learning for the Future," this year's festival adopts an innovative model that integrates online and offline platforms, coordinates all levels across the province, hosts decentralized simultaneous exhibitions, and promotes lifelong learning. It has精心 crafted a tripartite framework comprising a Main Venue, province-wide sub-venues, and an Online Cloud Book Fair. The event is dedicated to creating a high-quality reading and cultural gala shared by all, connecting the Greater Bay Area, and integrating with the world, infusing the land of Southern Guangdong with a profound cultural atmosphere.
This year's festival boasts a massive lineup and exceptionally rich content. The Main Venue features four themed exhibition halls, bringing together premium global publishing resources with nearly 30,000 titles of original overseas books and over 500,000 cultural and creative products. It also proudly invites 170 renowned authors and experts from home and abroad to host more than 280 high-quality cultural events. Meanwhile, 437 sub-venues are set up across the province, covering a total area of 1.203 million square meters and spanning 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong, as well as Hong Kong, Macao, and the Kashgar region of Xinjiang. A total of 1,579 reading promotion activities are rolled out, truly realizing the vision of "Reading in Lingnan, accessible everywhere." Leveraging the opportunity of the 2026 APEC Summit, the festival has specially established an APEC exhibition hall with Thailand as the Guest Country of Honor, gathering exhibition resources from over 30 countries and regions. It also deeply integrates with the Guangdong Provincial Lifelong Learning Platform, extending the five-day offline exhibition into a year-round, normalized public learning service.
In terms of ideological guidance, 2026 marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Red Army's Long March. The festival focuses on disseminating Red culture and consolidating the ideological and cultural foundation. The Lifelong Learning Hall at the Main Venue features exhibition zones for "Civic Education," "Lingnan Cultural Heritage," and "Lifelong Learning for All," highlighting multilingual works on the Party's innovative theories and launching a special Red-themed book exhibition titled "Revisiting the Long March, Remembering the Journey Through Books," alongside a series of recommended Red classics. Red book sections are set up simultaneously at all main and sub-venues across the province, with normalized activities such as Red story-sharing sessions, themed recitations, and study tours, building a comprehensive Red reading communication matrix to ensure the legacy is passed down through generations.
Centered on lifelong learning, the festival innovates a "dual-engine" model driven by both the exhibition and the platform. It assembles a team of renowned scholars and writers in humanities, technology, and children's literature to serve as "Reading Navigators," providing professional reading guidance for readers of all ages. The "Learning Lecture Hall" and "Reading Heroes" brand events have been upgraded to balance high-end intellectual exchange with grassroots role model guidance, alongside a province-wide classic reading competition to foster a vibrant atmosphere of learning and emulation. The Online Cloud Book Fair is fully integrated with the provincial lifelong learning platform, offering vast resources such as event replays and premium courses, creating a year-round, ever-active smart learning hub.
Capitalizing on the window of the APEC Summit, the festival comprehensively elevates its international exhibition standards, pioneering a two-way dialogue model featuring an "International Guest Country of Honor and Domestic Guest Province of Honor." The Thailand Guest Country of Honor zone focuses on the overseas Chinese connections and literary exchanges between Guangdong and Thailand, deepening cross-cultural dialogue through overseas Chinese culture exhibitions, Thai literature showcases, and folk performances. The Shanghai Guest Province of Honor zone displays over 4,000 quality books, highlighting the achievements of Shanghai-style and Jiangnan culture and promoting the exchange of publishing resources between Shanghai and Guangdong. The festival sets up multi-dimensional international exhibition zones, inviting consular envoys from multiple countries in Guangzhou and international writers to participate in dialogues, and organizing overseas scholars to visit Guangdong's sci-tech frontlines, building a high-quality platform for mutual learning in publishing and copyright cooperation between China and foreign countries. This pioneering dual-guest linkage model achieves two-way empowerment through international integration and domestic coordination. At the international level, it leverages overseas Chinese documents, film and television prop exhibitions, and literary works to recreate the development journey of Guangdong's overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Domestically, it uses Shanghai as a link to focus on the integrated development of Red culture, Shanghai-style culture, and Jiangnan culture, boosting coordinated cultural development nationwide.
Grounded in the cultural roots of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the exhibition deepens cultural synergy among the three places. The Hong Kong and Macao exhibition zone showcases the blended Chinese and Western urban heritage and development memory, highlighting the shared cultural roots between these regions and the mainland. The newly created "Bay Area Cultural Salon" brand hosts in-depth discussions on Bay Area development, industrial upgrading, and regional culture. Meanwhile, it innovates youth cultural formats by opening a Bay Area anime and creative market and hosting trendy events such as Hanfu parades and short-video reading competitions. In terms of industry empowerment, it builds an integrated innovation ecosystem of "publishing + culture + industry + communication." Through three industry benchmark events—the International Copyright Fair, the Publishing Brand Influence Conference, and the Launch Ceremony of the Four Major Documentary Series of Lingnan Culture—it facilitates industrial transformation and upgrading. It also innovatively creates immersive exhibition zones featuring traditional Chinese medicine culture, fragrance aesthetics, and特色 bookstores, and fosters cross-border cooperation with high-quality film, television, and anime IPs to unleash the innovative momentum of the cultural industry.
Technological empowerment is a major highlight of this year's festival. The exhibition reshapes the reading experience with digital and intelligent technologies, showcasing cutting-edge popular science reading materials in fields such as artificial intelligence, space exploration, marine scientific research, and life sciences, and unveiling the nation's first AI publishing industry standards. Interactive projects such as VR deep-sea exploration, space simulation experiences, and AIGC creative creation are set up on-site, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the charm of technological reading. In terms of public benefit, books at the Main Venue are offered at discounts of up to 40%, and an innovative lifelong learning points redemption program for book purchases is introduced. Barrier-free reading facilities and dedicated services are specifically improved to safeguard the cultural rights of special groups. Relying on over a thousand grassroots reading hubs across the province, reading services are extended to communities, villages, commercial districts, and subway stations, building an all-encompassing Lingnan reading ecosystem where everyone can learn, reading is accessible everywhere, and knowledge is shared at all times.