Working as an intern at the Goethe-Institut London for three months, I've been really looking forward to my two day visit to the London Book Fair.






I entered the building by Earl’s Court tube station with high expectations. Book fairs always have a special meaning for me – a small, artificial world created around my favourite item: books. But the London Book Fair is quite different to the Leipzig Book Fair. It is primarily a trade fair for publishers buying and selling publication rights. The exhibitors’ stalls are full of books, lined up in carefully-presented rows, but you can’t reach them because they are enclosed by ranks of writers, agents and publishers. The most important publishing houses in the UK are highly visible - Bloomsbury, Penguin Books and Random House Group, for example. Turkey was this year’s ‘Market Focus partner’ of the London Book Fair.

Literary Translation Centre: Blogging and Networking

The book fair featured many panels which discussed literature in the digital era, and the well-prepared panels of the Literary Translation Centre gave the visitor the opportunity to get a wide-ranging overview of the international book market. The Literary Translation Centre is supported by Literature Across Frontiers (LAF), a European platform for literary exchange, translation and policy debate. The main focus of these panel discussions was the question: which role does the translator have for the market and in the network between authors, literary agencies and publishing houses? The audience – mostly translators – was provided with to up-to-date information about promotion and marketing tools for publishers and translators and new platforms for networking between publishing houses, literary agents, writers and translators.

One of the conclusions was that despite globalisation the role of the translator is still often determined by cultural differences. For example in Japan the translator can become famous in his own right, like Haruki Murakami who used to be popular for his translation work before he started writing his own novels. Being famous as a translator is something that translators in Europe and the USA, who sometimes struggle just to get their names printed on the book cover, can still only dream of!






Blogging is now recognised as a really good way to promote oneself as a translator and to inform readers about the efforts and skills required by those “hidden masters of the literary scene”. There is still a perceived lack of appreciation of the creative process of the translator’s work.

But the most important aspect for translators today is networking: sharing ideas with reviewers, publishers, book sellers, etc. The panel ‘Innovations in Literary Translation’ gave a lot of useful advice. There is now a new non-profit website ‘TL Hub’ which provides networking opportunities and creates an online society for collaborations between translators worldwide. This new social networking website also focuses on the emotional and intellectual aptitudes of translators which are vital to successfully capturing the essence of a text and then conveying it in a different language.

By contrast, we also gained an insight into the work of the economic giant AmazonCrossing which has created a platform for editors to find new translators. Alexandra Büchler, director of Literature Across Frontiers, is especially interested in more funding for translation in e-publishing, which is seen as the way forward for the publishing scene.

With regard to other new developments, everyone had been looking forward to the demonstration of the new app ‘Gimbal’. This app provides access to short stories set in various big cities, so that travelers can read a story relating to whichever city they find themselves in.






Translation enables literature to travel

Further panel discussions were based on the experiences of literary agents from Greece, the Netherlands and Turkey. These agents provided an overview of the international publications rights-selling scene and the particular role of British publishers. Turkey, for example, has tended to mostly sell rights to neighboring countries such as Bulgaria, and have had little interest from British publishing houses – until now. The rights of ten Turkish books have been recently sold to the UK/USA, and this represents a great success.

The most important book fair for publication rights trading is still the Frankfurt Book Fair, although the London Book Fair is the second biggest. However, only 4% of the British book market comprises translated works. The biggest buyers of translation rights are China, the Arabic world, Korea and Japan.

Another interesting point was that the literary agencies benefit from the translators’ knowledge of the markets in their own countries and of which books are likely to sell well. It is also common for translators to translate from a second language if there is no translator available with the required linguistic expertise. In the end Edgar de Bruin, award-winning translator, emphasised that there is always a demand for a good quality books.






Language is always a barrier between different cultures – translation enables literature to travel. I always wonder how many short stories, novels, poems and dramas I’ve missed out on because I can’t speak enough foreign languages. Since I have lived in London I have also wondered how much British people miss out on in terms of the cultural input from different countries because relatively few books are translated into English. That seems to be enough to think outside the box. For sure we need more and more translation to create a connected society with access to as many foreign cultures as possible.

Invited by the Goethe Institut Dänemark, I spent two inspiring days at the ongoing Leipzig Bookfair and the reading festival Leipzig liest. This giant event – assembling aroud 160.000 visitors - presents a distinguished programme of current writers from Germany and Europe. Among this year’s highlights were a visit by the former Russian president Michail Gorbatschow (with his biography ”My life”) and of course the announcement of The Leipziger Buchpreis.

Thursday afternoon I attended the festive and ceremoneous price award in the spectacular glass hall which is the center of the premises. David Wagner was granted the prestigeous price in the fiction category for his novel ”Leben”, a touching story of a young father waiting anxiously for a liver donor. Hopefully Wagner’s book and the other interesting works nominated for the price will now be translated and meet a big audience outside Germany.

Parallell to more than 2000 readings, interviews and writer’s talks, I noticed that the Fair - in addition to the themes and content of current books - gives a profound insight into a wide range of other subjects. Hence, the fastest-growing branch of the fair is the programme that pulls attention to the book as a physical object and to diverse aspects surrounding the book such as graphic, typography and the art of the book cover. There are discussions on promotion, marketing and the challenges of e-publishing and e-books. And a new invention of this year's fair is a specialised program for authors, self-publishers, bloggers and publicists.

What is the future of the book? This question - nothing less - was the subject of a high profile panel discussion on the opening day. The line up were leading writers, publishers and literary critics, among them German Judith Schalansky ”Der Hals der Giraffe” and American publisher and writer Dave Eggers. The overall conslusion is encouraging: The book has a future – both in new, electronic forms and as physical, printed object with aesthetic and emotional values not to be beaten by electronic alternatives.

Schalansky pointed out that today writers have better possibilities for creation than ever. The writer can publish his work in a form thas suits and supports the story – ie. digitally, including new opportunities such as interactivity and individual modification, or physically in the form of highly sophisticated and aesthetic books. Thanks to this co-existence, both the physical and the digital literature will have to optimise and distinct themselves. As Schalansky put it: ”It will all be nicer and better”.

Already it is evident that publishers are being forced to make very elaborated ebooks as alternatives to the printed edition. And on the other hand printed books are generally becoming more beautiful.

Despite his position as a leading publisher of ebooks in the ebook market number one in the USA, Dave Eggers gave a strong defense for the physical book. We are attracted to physical things, he argued. Things that we can hand to our children og grand children. You live and travel with your books and looking at them in the book shelf is like seeing old friends. This is not to the same extent possible with ebooks, and therefore paper books are likely to stay. Also, as Eggers put it, on paper you can loose yourself a little bit more than on a screen.

The panel was asked to imagine themselves unwrapping a book for christmas in, say, 15 years from now. What will that book look like, and how is it supposed to be read? None of the debators were able to present an accurate image of their future book. It was repeated that the ebook as we know it is in an early stage and will probably go through dramatic changes. Furthermore there are still obstacles that need to be overcome for the ebook to thrive. Problems such as the risk of piracy need to be solved, and a reliable businessmodel for digital literature is to be developed.

Just like the concept of the book, the book markets are becoming more complex. This shows in the programme of this year’s fair, where you find advice for established writers as well as newcomers. ”Three steps to publishing your own book” and ”what can e-publishing do for you” were some of the topics. Self-publishing is currently booming in Germany, and for the first time the Leipzig Book Fair is awarding a prize for books that have been published this way. The signal is clear: This is not only a fair for traditional publishers.

A number of other activities add to the impression of an innovative and comprehensive book festival. Students meet in the fair for career days focusing on the book and media market. New writers can get advice from professionals on how to promote and manage themselves. Portrait photos, strategies for using Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest are points on the agenda. One workshop focuses on training your presence and performance in front of the film camera.

The point here is not only that new social media call for a personal and deliberate approach to marketing. We are also reminded that, more than ever, readers are keen to learn more about the person behind the book, and that all writers have to deal with that as part of their job.

A large area of the Fair is dedicated to the aesthetic and artistic dimension of publishing – ie. book binding, grapic, book covers, paper, illustration. This section stands out from the crowded and messy impression of a typical book fair. It is as intriguing and inspiring as a museum exhibition– not the least the area ”Schönste Bücher aus aller Welt”, a long line of illuminated bookshelves presenting outstanding illustrated and printed books from the past year. The exhibition shows a great variety and no evident common thread. What is striking is how evocative and inviting books can be – just on the outside, on the cover. From Denmark, the jury has selected eye-catching covers such as Louise Hindsgavl’s ”Cuts and Bruises” and the antology ”Kaffeslapperads”, which is a book wrapped in a knitted cover. In the other end of the scale you find Frantz Kafka’s diaries in a sharp, black cover from the publisher Vandkunsten. Around them books from all over the world covering a wide range of topics – from children’s litterature and cooking to architecture.

The profession of binding and typing is demonstrated by several companies from Leipzig and surrounding German cities. In this field Leipzig has a remarkable track record. Before First World War the city reached a peak as the home of more than 900 publishers. During the Second World War, in 1943, 84% of the book district of Leipzig, the so-called ”Graphic square”, was destroyed by air strikes. But Leipzig remains a city of books counting around 100 publishers in Leipzig.

During the Fair, the reading festival ”Leipzig liest” organizes city tours that roll up the exciting story of the Graphic Square and the literary history of the city. Wednesday afternoon, I joined the city walk, which was quite interesting – but cold. Spring has not yet arrived in Germany. The Leipzig liest-festival invites for readings, music and talks in the afternoon and evening hours. The festival makes use of the best and most atmospheric scenes of the city such as museums and book cafés and the Moritz Bastei-cellars by the University, where the festival each year presents young authors in perfect, cosy surroundings at the”Lange Leipziger Lesenacht”.

Leipzig is also the home town of Börsenverein, the German publishers and booksellers’ organisation (now seated in Frankfurt). At the fair, the organisation launches its new book marketing campaign ”Vorsicht Buch” with yellow/black installations and signs warning about the strong power of the book. Visitors are invited to jump into the installations and take photos. Books can chance your mind and change the world, says the campaign. I am sure that the more than 160.000 visitors to the fair agree. The future of the book – in well-known as well as new forms – looks bright after a visit to Leipzig.