I am in the book business and I know Frankfurt Bookfair well: it’s an irrelevant waste of space. I traveled to the Frankfurt Book Fair many times, but I no longer do because I prefer to do business in London, instead. Unless you are a German publisher distributing or promoting German books in Germany, the Frankfurt Book Fair is totally irrelevant for you.
Let me be absolutely clear. As of today, Frankfurt Book Fair is nothing more than a showcase of books in Europe for Arabic and Asian dictatorial regimes. Europeans don’t need the Frankfurt Book Fair to do business with each other. Most of the business in Frankfurt Bookfair is ceremonial and entertainment – friends and industry people meeting each other preferring to cut deals in person to see their old mates instead of saving time and doing everything by email. As always, the most important events at international book fairs are the exclusive parties and events -where everyone is drunk, and not the fair itself.
However, the Frankfurt Book Fair is still useful for authors like Adania Shibli to promote themselves within the book industry. The problem is that Frankfurt Book Fair’s administration prefers to rake in money from dictatorial regimes and appease special interest groups and lobbies instead of creating a legitimately free space for authors and publishers. Frankfurt Book Fair has canceled an award to Palestinian author Adania Shibli over the war in Gaza right now. This decision was grossly stupid, cruel, and vindictive and it was taken upon a request that was made to FBF’s CEO Juergen Boos but I am still trying to understand who made the request to Boos. Boos made a stupid (as usual) statement justifying his decision. Juergen Boos is a pathological liar and should not be trusted and this is not the first time he has canceled something in the Fair at the request of evil interests. In 2009, Boos canceled the participation of two Chinese dissident authors at an event at the request of the Chinese delegation. Boos blamed it all on his employee and fired them to cover up his gross mistake.
Obviously, the cancellation had the opposite effect, and Shibli has now shot to international fame. Had Frankfurt Bookfair did not cancel her award, many of us would not have heard of her. In fact, her book which was meant to receive the prize, Minor Detail, is shooting up in sales. Her English publisher, Fitzcarraldo Editions is known to publish very high-brow literature from all over the world in English translation. They have now also released her book for free as an ebook (which I am sure they are doing with the author’s permission and only after book sales have covered all their costs).
What also bothers me is that only a couple of Arab participants are protesting against the decision of FBF. So far, only the Emirates and the Arab Publishers Association have protested against this decision. Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and all the others don’t seem to be very enthusiastic to show any solidarity to their Palestinian sister.
And what about the Europeans? It seems there isn’t much interest in FBF becoming a platform for free speech. European participants seem to be happy that for the sake of maximum profits, Juergen Boos has constantly pandered to the interests of dictatorial regimes. Let me make this absolutely clear once again. Among all the things that Frankfurt Book Fair is supposed to be, it is mostly a platform for dictatorial regimes across the world to promote their ideology and foreign policy in Europe. Year after year, European authors have become less important in the Frankfurt Book Fair as dictators took center stage.
So, what’s not to hate about Frankfurt Book Fair? To top it all, the city is grey, soulless, bland, and dull, and you’d have to walk relatively long distances just to find a table at a good restaurant. It’s really one of the worst places on Earth to hold an international book fair but somehow the Germans still have enough blood money revenues from dictatorial regimes to keep on going.
Frankfurt Book Fair is an irrelevant waste of space. Go to London or New York instead and forget about Germany. The Germans can’t seem to be able to make money unless a dictatorial country is involved.
Website Editor
Historian and Publisher
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