The first edition of the exhibition was launched on November  1975, with the Kuwait Arab Book Fair, featuring participation from government institutions and publishing houses from Kuwait and other Arab countries. The exhibition has continued year after year, shining in the cultural scene in Kuwait, the regional, and the Arab world, securing a distinguished place on the map of Arab book fairs.

The exhibition is considered the largest cultural event organized annually by the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters, in terms of the number of participants and visitors. It serves as a platform for interaction between writers, publishers, and readers, where creative values converge and the intellectual relationship between opinion and thought leaders and the audience develops through seminars, lectures, and poetry evenings as part of the exhibition’s accompanying cultural program.

The exhibition also dedicates a special hall for children, including publishing houses specializing in children’s books. It features the Child Culture Monitoring Pavilion of the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters, which offers a distinguished program for children, including practical and artistic workshops, performances, and clubs for reading and writing stories.