Found in Translation

London Book Fair 2013

nospam@example.com (Julia Tautz) — 2013-04-18T13:41:09Z

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.

On Leipzig Book Fair 2013 and the future of the book

nospam@example.com (Annette Matthiesen) — 2013-03-17T10:10:05Z

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.

Leipziger Buchmesse 2013

nospam@example.com (Beate Detlefs) — 2013-03-05T10:39:50Z

Here we go again... In diesem Jahr wird die Festivalleiterin von "København læser" (Kopenhagen liest), Annette Matthiesen zur Buchmesse in Leipzig fahren. Sie trifft sich dort mit den Organisatoren von "Leipzig liest", denn "Leipzig liest" ist das Vorbild für "København læser". Annette wird in diesem Blog über Ihre Erfahrungen und Eindrücke schreiben.

Five Dials in Berlin

nospam@example.com (Anna Kelly) — 2012-12-10T16:48:37Z

Today London looks smoky, drizzly, grey and cramped. This is what you get when you return from Berlin – from its wide, empty streets and all those huge, colourful walls.

I was in Berlin last week for a special event held on Monday 3rd December – the launch of a special issue of Five Dials magazine, issue no. 26, which features an array of German-language writers translated into English, as well as other choice selections of writing, such as three essays about Sebald, and other inspired non-sequiturs, like Demetri Martin’s incredibly funny palindromes (you have to read them to know what I’m talking about, and why they’re so amazing). It also includes wonderful illustrations by Berlin-based artist Sophia Martineck, like this one, and the others below:

I had planned to pepper this blog post with bright and colourful photos of the event last week, but you might have to imagine it – or I might have to work extra hard to try to describe it, because as it happens we seem to have a dearth of photographic evidence of the night. It’s a well-known fact that photography’s strictly verboten in Berlin’s most hedonistic places of the night, but I’d like to assure everyone that cameras were definitely allowed in the venue on Monday, and that anything we got up to was strictly limited to the kind of fun associated with wine in plastic cups and listening to authors read.

But nevertheless we did do it all in the near-darkness. We were launching in a downstairs room in what used to be a post-office factory building, on Skalitzerstraße, in Kreuzberg. Berliners are masterful at creating wonderful venues out of buildings with a past life as something else, and The Wye is a typical example: a historic building which has stood empty for some time and has recently been done up to stage events and house artists’ studios. Our Five Dials room was a long white-walled space of ultimate minimal chic. Our stage was a crate we’d found upstairs and borrowed. The lights were a couple of lamps clipped to the stage.

The night began with drinking, and talking, and music, as people slowly dribbled in from the freezing night outside. Then came the readings – which were short, snappy and varied. Jan Brandt is a young German author whose novel Against the World was recently praised widely in Germany and will be published in the UK by Seagull Books. He kicked off by reading his brilliant essay ‘All Chic and Elegance Are Over’, a vitriolic-ironic take on all the reasons to hate Berlin. There was something perfect about seeing him read this particular essay to this mixed crowd, his leather jacket only just covering a white ‘I heart Berlin’ T-shirt on which he’d cancelled our the heart with a cross made out of black tape. For a start, it was dry and sharp and funny, an ideal warm-up for the audience. But beyond the humour, I found something to linger on in the way that it deconstructed the city, and the idea of the city, and the way that the city is perceived by insiders and outsiders. Following him was Clare Wigfall, the acclaimed short-story writer who now lives in Berlin. She read a dark, bleak story about homeless kids in a cold city, in a voice so mellifluous and melodic it belied the brittle cruelty of the lives she was describing.

Clare mentioned that her story was (possibly) set in Moscow, and that she enjoyed writing about places she’d never been to – which is of course a practice Judith Schalanksy excelled at in her exquisite Atlas of Remote Islands, which came out in the UK last year. Judith was up next, reading from her new novel, which is currently being translated by Shaun Whiteside for Bloomsbury. Called The Giraffe’s Neck, it’s about an elderly female teacher at a school where the numbers are dropping catastrophically each year due to the falling birth rate. It’s infused with the wonderfully cruel and acerbic character of this teacher, and Judith brought her life with a stand-out reading. It’s unusual to have readings in more than one language on one night, but for me it was a delightful novelty and I was thrilled to hear this being read in Schalansky’s hypnotic, cadenced German. (See the issue for a longer extract of the novel in English.)

As Five Dials is an online magazine and doesn’t exist in a hard copy until subscribers print it out, launching the issue means pressing the ‘send’ button so that it’s emailed out to all of the magazines’ subscribers, who live all over the world. For this issue itself we counted down (zehn, neun, acht . . .) and then Jan Brandt pressed the button on Five Dials editor Craig Taylor’s laptop. Then we celebrated by welcoming to the stage two final readers: our very own Hamish Hamilton author Joe Dunthorne, and Katy Derbyshire, a translator who provides an energetic link between the Berlin and London literary scenes with her blog lovegermanbooks. Only Joe – only Joe – could come up with the premise of ‘Owl-in-Law’, a poem about a father disturbed by his daughter’s new relationship with an owl. Needless to say, the audience were intrigued and delighted by him. And Katy got the party started with an enthused and upbeat reading of her translation of German author Tilman Rammstedt’s ‘Invitation’ which is probably technically a story but in actual fact reads more like a kind of existential, feel-good prose poem. It was the perfect start to the rest of the night, when we talked in a bubbly mixture of English, German and Denglisch, drank beer, turned up the volume on the music from German-English DJ Anika, bought books from the stall run by Dialogue Books – and utterly failed to take any photos*, because it was too dark and we were having too much fun.

I hope everyone there had a good time and implore everyone else to check out the issue of Five Dials at www.fivedials.com. It’s the longest issue of the magazine we’ve ever produced and will keep you entertained until Christmas.

*If anyone sees this and can prove me wrong, please do get in touch: I’d love to see the evidence.

(anna.kelly@uk.penguingroup.com)

Some thoughts on Erlangen Comic-Salon

nospam@example.com (Doug Wallace) — 2012-06-22T10:45:01Z

I love graphic novels. So, it’s lucky that I work at one of Britain’s best graphic novel publishing houses – SelfMadeHero. Amongst other things, I’m responsible for finding outstanding graphic novels published in languages other than English and publishing them in translation so that British and North American readers can enjoy them too. Earlier this month, I attended Germany’s best comics festival for the first time. That’s what this post is all about. Specifically, it’s about the things that I thought were interesting and distinctive about the German comics scene from my own perspective and more generally, a British perspective.

Germany plays host to several comics festival each year, but the one I visited was the Erlangen International Comic-Salon. The festival describes itself as ‘the most important festival for graphic literature in German-speaking countries’. The Salon is certainly internationally renowned and has taken over this south German town, near Nuremberg, every two years, for the past 25 years. For each edition of the salon, the high street, theatre and civic buildings of this usually sleepy university town are temporarily transformed into Germany’s ‘comics capital’ with 25,000 visitors gathering for four days of art exhibitions, debates, concerts, parties, “live art” performances, a prestigious comics prize and, last but not least, a grand comic convention.

As the Salon website states, the salon “brings together art and commerce, mainstream and avant-garde.” “It is the seismograph and motor of the German comics industry and reflects all facets of the genre.”

The main purpose of my visit was to meet German publishers and creators and find projects that would be interesting for our readers. I also went to find out, first-hand, about the German comics industry and scene and see what lessons could be taken from it. Last, but not least, I’d heard that the salon was a social affair and I hoped I would find time to spend time with our German authors and publishing partners in a less hectic environment than the annual trade comic and book fairs at Angouleme and Frankfurt.

What would a Comic-Salon be without the artists?

The organisers attracted over 400 artists from around the world for the 2012 edition. A quick glance through the exhibition guide revealed that I knew only a small percentage of them, mainly those from the independent graphic novel and scene.

Of those creators I knew, I was pleased to see Hamburg’s Arne Bellstorf (Baby’s In Black) and Berlin’s Reinhard Kleist (Castro, Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness) on “home turf”. Both these creators are well known in Germany for their newspaper strips and their graphic novels alike. Similarly, both are published in translation by SelfMadeHero and by leading houses around the world in other countries. Each debuted works at the Salon: Bellstorf with Doris (The Treasure Fleet) and Kleist with Der Boxer (Carlsen). During the show I also spoke with or heard other outstanding German creators speak. They included Isabel Kreitz (Haarman), Nicolas Mahler (Angelman), Simon Schwartz (Packeis), Michael Meier (Das Inferno), Uli Oesterle (Hector Umbra), Sascha Hommer (Insekt), Jens Harder (Alpha Directions), Anke Feuchtenberger (Die Hure in Wirft den Handschuh) and Till Thomas (Zirp). This is by no means a representative group of German comic artists – but they were ones whose work I really enjoy. I am still working my way through the work of the female artists featured in a special edition of the Swiss Strapazin Magazine and the numerous Spring anthologies from Hamburg that I bought at the Salon.

Oustide in the Rathausplatz I also picked up a wonderful anthology of German creators called Neufundland with short stories based around ‘the meaning of life’. There wasn’t a bad story in the collection. It featured Barbara Benas, Sandra Brandstätter, Dominic Eise, Uwe Heidschötter, Sam Hiti, Mark Kjaergaard, Sebastian Koch, Enrique Lorenzo, Sylvain Marc, Maike Plenzke, Miguel Porto, Christian Puille, Alfonso Salazar, Jakob Schuh, Andreas Schuster, Steffi Schütze, Mikkel Sommer, Louis Tardivier, Phil Warner, Thomas Wellmann and Heinz Wolf.

The Salon is a German-speaking affair, but it has a truly international guest list. This year saw a focus on Arabic comics. Of those international guests that I already knew or discovered more about at Erlangen were Lebanon’s Zeina Abirached, Britain’s Howard Hardiman (sometimes you have to go a long way to find out about people!) and Italian master Lorenzo Mattotti, whose ‘Hänsel und Gretel’ exhibition was shown at a venue in the town centre.

Thanks to Reprodukt, I was lucky enough to spend some time with France’s Cyril Pedrosa who created the award-winning, semi-autobiographical work Portugal and America’s Charles Burns.

Comics and Art

There were more than twenty art exhibitions spread around Erlangen. The centrepiece exhibition presented artists from Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. This complex exhibition was arranged in a souk-like arrangement of twisting, criss-crossing exhibition corridors at the Congress Centre and was navigated using iPads equipped to read QR codes mounted next to each artwork.

The exhibition was a revelation – from pieces on what it means to be a woman in Egypt today to first-person narratives from Palestinian activists. Much of the work had never been exhibited in their country of origin. Let’s hope that this exhibition continues to tour internationally.

I was genuinely impressed by the extensive exhibition / installation by Egyptian artist Golo, which took the form of long, vibrantly water-coloured street scenes and panorama. It was (almost) presented as part of the Arab Comics exhibition, but it was, in a way, quite separate.

Angouleme Festival Grand Prize-winning artist, Manuele Fior brought a compact, powerful exhibit of original water-coloured pages and jacket artwork from his graphic novels 5000km a second and Mademoiselle Else to the Salon. The exhibition would have been my absolute favourite, but it suffered from poor framing and a brightly lit gallery, which made it impossible to see the artwork without reflections from street and spot lighting.

Legendary French creator and publisher, David B., staged a major exhibition of page and cover artwork under title ‘Shadows and Visions’ that featured stunning pages from Best of Enemies, Black Paths, Epileptic and other dream-related works. Glass cases held fascinating ephemera from the early days of French publisher L’Association such as launch invitations, declarations of artist intention, founding certificates for L’Association and David B. illustrated Tarot cards featuring members of the commune.

Charles Burns’ powerful exhibition ‘Horror Around the Corner’ presented recent work from X’ed Out/The Hive, pages from his well-known graphic novel Black Hole work from the 80s, 90s and magazine illustrations for The New Yorker and Rolling Stone Magazine. Personally, I enjoyed watching the animated short film from the ‘Fear(s) of the dark’ series (2008), which was based on a Burns comic. Actually, I don’t know if it was based on a Burns’ comic directly. Someone will no doubt set me straight on that point.

Avant Verlag presented the final exhibition I visited. It consisted of original pencil and water-coloured artwork from Felix Pestemer's newly published Dance of the Skeletons. It brought together the author’s photographs of visits to Mexico along with Day of the Dead shrine artefacts such as Mexican sugar skulls and carved figurines. It was a real pleasure to see Pestermer’s intricately pencilled, highly detailed artwork up close. I hope it is brought out for another show so that more people can enjoy it.

Art school aesthetic

It is hard to explain how exciting the stands of the German art schools were at Erlangen without actually going to Erlangen and browsing the stalls yourself. I hope the photos help where my words fail. Students and graduates from art and illustration courses in Hamburg, Braunschweig, Essen, Kiel, Augsburg, Saar, Halle, Leipzig, Hannover, Offenbach am Main, Kassel, Munchen, Luzern, Dresden and Berlin had taken great care to show their professionalism, creativity, craftsmanship in producing prints, comics, art-prints, pamphlets, zines, mini-comix, comic-anthologies, monographs and concertina books. The UK art school scene doesn’t have such a strong focus on sequential illustration and so it was mind-blowing to see the sophistication of the comic and illustration work that came out of the German schools.

The Publishers and Exhibitors

At the centre of the Erlangen Salon is the International Comic Fair in the Heinrich-Lades-Halle Congress Centre, located right in the city centre. This is where around 150 exhibitors – German and international publishers, agencies, comic dealers, comic classes from universities – present their publishing programmes.

All German comics life was on display here. The salon claims to have played ‘a decisive role in changing the perception of comics in Germany: not only as a mass medium but also as an art form.’ And from what I saw on this visit, I believe them. Experimental art-school, small press and zine collectives had their places on the exhibition floor but so too did the highly commercial manga, traditional book publishers, graphic novel publishers and licensed comic publishers.

As with any international show, the large stands of these most commercial publishers dominated the room (in this case Panini, Egmont and Carlsen Comics). Nestled between these goliaths was a slim but interesting showcase of titles from traditional, German language, book publishers (including Knesebeck, Jacoby Stuart, Atrium and Eichborn) who have all dipped a toe into the graphic novel market to varying extents. It seemed as though most had adopted a strategy of acquiring foreign graphic novel rights in order to build respectable lists quickly. This is something that happens in the UK and US too.

The convention’s ground floor were where the longboxes of comics-traders, galleries of the original comic-art dealers, stalls of vintage comics album, tables of merchandise sellers could be found. These parts of the convention always look the same, varying only a little in their content.

The mezzanine floor of the convention was distinctly different to the main floor. To the left of the main café lay the “Junges Forum” comprised of the art schools. To the right of the café was the preserve of the most established, graphic novel and comix publishers who define the German-speaking graphic novel scene –Reprodukt (Berlin), Edition Moderne (Zurich), Zwerchfell (Stuttgart). Missing from this independent group, but not from the salon, were Avant Verlag, Schreiber & Leser, Edition 52 and Vraoum! who were all located downstairs. Bridging the gap between these two worlds were the stands of the hip collectives of art school graduates including Hamburg’s Spring, Berlin’s The Treasure Fleet and Kassel’s Rotopolpress.

The final halls of the convention contained a mix of small press (Jaja Verlag), self-publishers (Amelie Persson), experimental digital publishers and those concentrating on “funnies” or collected, historical reprints (Bocola).

Outside the Rathaus, which hosted the main convention, were several public squares – the Rathausplatz and the Schlossplatz – that hosted live art and interactive performances. These two squares were linked by the town’s main street Nuremburgstasse/Hauptstrasse that was dotted with a variety of public and private buildings hosting comic art exhibitions. The remaining Comics-Salon venues (The Siemens Building, NH Hotel, Pacelli Haus and the Theatre) were all within a moment or two’s walk off the main street.

Talking comics

Over four days, there were 30 lectures and panel discussions dealing with issues such as ‘Comics and politics’, ‘the role artists and graphic literature are playing in the processes of transformation in the Arab world’, ‘the societal function of comics in Russia and Indonesia’, ‘the depiction of war’, ‘violence and representations of death in graphic literature’, ‘ the DC Relaunch, which were aimed at a wide audience: not just comics junkies.

These talks were, as you would expect, conducted in German. I was able to attend a few of these sessions, including one with many of the French-speaking guest creators including Zeina Abirached (Lebanon), Yassine Ellil (Tunisia), Mazen Kerbaj (Lebanon), Lena Merhej (Lebanon), Brahim Raïs (Morocco) and Barrack Rima (Lebanon), which provoked lively debate about the political role of comics in Middle Eastern countries.

Newspaper publisher turned graphic novel publisher

One of the most interesting things that I found time to ponder at Erlangen was the role played by newspapers in the comics industry. Around 2005, the tabloid Bild started an edition of 12 omnibus editions of popular mainstream comics and manga like Asterix and Donald Duck for its readers to buy and collect. Around the same time the highly respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung started a line of small format, paperback graphic novels including works by Will Eisner, Hugo Pratt or Jean Giraud. In 2011 the similarly respectable Süddeutsche Zeitung started their first newspaper "Graphic Novel library" imprint.

This first tranche of hardback collectible volumes from Süddeutsche Zeitung featured well-known titles in translation like Will Eisner’s Contract with God, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, Joe Sacco’s Palastine and German titles such Peer Meter & Barbara Yellin’s The Gift and Reinhard Kleist’ Cash – I See a Darkness under the series ‘Literature meets Illustration’. This March they published the second tranche, under the title ‘Heaven and Earth’. This series featured (arguably) a greater number of lesser-known works, like those from Manuele Fior, Posy Simmonds, Marc-Antoine Mathieu, Shaun Tan and Keiji Nakazawa. I think I’m correct when I say that all of these titles were already published in German translation by existing publishers, so these SZ-Bibliotek titles were without exception, re-prints.

Each SZ-Bibliotek was volume bound in a dreary blue or red cloth-effect hardcover with an uninspiring greyscale illustration. This quibble aside, the very existence of the series speaks volumes about the acceptance of graphic literature In Germany. The variety of the graphic novels that had been chosen by the paper demonstrates the sophisticated reading habits of the German comics readers. Or perhaps they only exhibit the confidence of the paper in the mainstream appeal of comics to their core readership.

Talking to one German comics editor, I saw a flipside to the success of the SZ-Bibliotek. Although it had led to prominent stocking of graphic novels in bookshops, it also limited some bookshops who felt that they no longer needed to stock titles from outside the SZ-Bibliotek series.

Whatever the truth, I dream of the day when the Guardian, the Times or the Sun promote a graphic novel library in this way in Britain!

Three final things that I learned during my visit to Erlangen Comic-Salon:

1) You must not joke about Donald Duck with German “Donaldists”. If drawn in the traditional German-style, they believe that his trouser-less, anatine world embodies a German “Golden Age”. Moreover, matters concerning Donald should be discussed in the manner of politics or philosophy and defended with the vigour that an Englishman defends his proverbial castle.

2) “Portion control” does not apply to German Schnitzel dishes. ‘Three person meat-sharing platter (breaded, deep fried)’ could be introduced as an aid to tourists unfamiliar with the local servings suggestion.

3) I will start collecting Panini stickers again if British conventions follow the example of Erlangen and make stickers for each of the attending creators!

The Erlangen Comics-Salon will next take place 19-22 June 2014. I recommend anyone who is interested in comics or illustration to visit this sixteenth edition.

Thanks to Bodo Birk, Tobias Ott, Elisabeth Pyroth, Dirk Rehm & Sebastian Oehler for making it such an enjoyable trip.

Freiheit ist Terror!

nospam@example.com (Fiona Rintoul) — 2012-03-20T11:22:43Z

So lautet das neuste Graffito auf der Wolankstraße in Pankow. Da bin ich nach der Buchmesse hingegangen, um den Dichter und Künstler Johannes Jansen zu treffen. Auf der Messe hat er sein neues Buch Nach her (mit Abstand zwischen den Wörtern) präsentiert. Das Buch erscheint bei dem österreichischen Verlag Klever Verlag. Johannes ist leztes Jahr an eine Veranstaltung in Glasgow (die Teil des Filmfests war) über verbotene Filme und Texte in der ehemaligen DDR eingeladen worden. Da hat er toll vorgelesen auf deutsch, und ich habe dann meine Uebersetzung von seinem Text vorgelesen.

Das Graffito Freiheit ist Terror! schien die Erblebnisse vieler Ostdeutschen nach der Wende irgendwie zusammenzufassen. Darum geht es auch in Johannes neuem Buch. In Johannes Stammcafé in Pankow haben wir die Möglichkeit besprochen, weiter Untergrundtexte aus DDR Zeiten zu übersetzen. Mal sehen was daraus kommt.

Recherchen oder nicht recherchiern?

nospam@example.com (Fiona Rintoul) — 2012-03-20T10:54:06Z

Das ist immer die Frage beim Roman schreiben. Ein gut recherchierter Roman ist nicht unbedingt ein guter Roman. So Thomas von Steinaecker, desen Romans Das Jahr, in dem ich aufhörte, mir Sorgen zu machen, und anfing zu träumen für den Buchpreis der Leipziger Messe nominiert war, auf dem Blauen Sofa. Als Brittin, muß man da an Philip Henshers berühmte Buchrezension von James Thackaras Roman The Book of Kings denken: "He obviously cares deeply about these great historical movements and has done a great deal of research," schreibt Hensher in The Observer. "My God, he has researched and researched and researched. But on the evidence of The Book of Kings, he could not write 'Bum' on a wall."

Von Steinackers Roman spielt in der Versicherungsbranche. Er habe die Branche aber nicht "exzessiv" recherchiert. (Das kann man auch gut verstehen.) Bei dem Frausein (die Hauptfigur ist eine Frau) sei es aber anderes gewesen. Er müßte Zeitschriften wie Bunte abonniern, um herauszufinden, wie man zum Beispiel "freiwillig Stockelschuhe und Minirock trägt". Na ja. Da macht man lieber keine Kommentare.

Verabschiedung und Dank

nospam@example.com (Lasse Rask Hoff) — 2012-03-18T22:32:44Z

Lasse Hoff, Verlag Rosenkilde & Bahnhof, Kopenhagen, letzte Aufzeichnung:

Freitag war der letzte Tag für mich und hat mit einem sehr schönen Abend in Auerbachs Keller geendet (Ein Gruss an euch alle!) Jetzt ist es schon Sonntag, und ich bin wieder in Kopenhagen – aber einen herzlichen Dank an das Goethe Institut für ein sehr interessantes und lehrreiches Erlebnis. Ich bin mit vielen guten Erinnerungen, neuen Kontakten und Übersetzungsideen heimgereist. Mal sehen ob nicht etwas daraus kommt. Ich denke schon!

Translators' visit to the Leipzig Book Fair - after the event

nospam@example.com (Helen MacCormac) — 2012-03-18T00:11:30Z

The schedule was schön übersichtlich: Anreise Berlin, visit to the LCB, train to Leipzig, visit the book fair and a reception or two and then head off home.
I thought I'd get on the train home, check my notes and maybe write a summary of the past few days. Instead I fell asleep and dreamt about words and books and the people and places I'd just got to know.
I can never just go to Berlin - I always go back to Berlin. I don't think I know another city where past and present are so present. My great new thing to take away was LesArt - this is something every country should have: an independent Stelle (I'm hoping this is the one blog where we're allowed to do Salatspeak) for introducing literature to kids, with the most amazing ways of making them, you, us in our case, want to get to the bottom of storytelling. Sabine Mähne had us hooked the moment she asked us each to choose one of the objects she had set out for us (magnifying glass, paper weight, ball of wool...). I hope she's wrong in thinking that something this fantastic needs a Wende to come into being.
Then we had time for a first get to know (siehe Reiseprogramm, gemeinsames Abendessen). There we all were: translators and journalists and publishers, all fluent in German and all interested in the same stuff. Just imagine meeting people who have translated Michael Ende, Christine Nöstlinger, Cornelia Funke and and and! And this was day one!
First thing next day we headed out to the Literarisches Colloquium at Lake Wannsee. If you've studied German Lit., you'll understand that this is a bit of a Mecca. I had two voices going on in my head: I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, and: it's actually ok, it feels fine! I was personally really pleased to meet Katy Derbyshire there, who has just been awarded the German Embassy Translators' Award. And we got to listen to Annett Gröschner and Albrecht Selge who have recently published novels which could (also) be considered Berlinromane.
The next two days were Leipzig Book Fair days. The Leipzig Book Fair is a dive-in, dash, rumble, love AND enjoy affair. If you can cut yourself in four while squaring the circle, you'll get the best deal. If that's not possible and you love books, you will still be overjoyed. A short list of amazing things: the nominations for the children's book prize, the nominations for the grown-ups book prize, interviews auf dem blauen Sofa, readings by very many established and unestablished authors, the LCB discussion on translation and the fact that the local schools give their pupils a day off to visit the fair. PLUS the Rahmenprogramm. If anyone's worried about the future of German writing all they have to do is go to the Lesenacht. My favourite reading was by young writers from the Leipzig Literarinstitut.
BUT THE VERY BEST THING was our group: being able to talk to people who do the same thing, who worry about words, think about impact, know about differences, want to communicate. We talked about words! Selbstgerecht, gemütlich, Sehnsucht, frumpy. And about characteristics, hairstyles, shoes, flowery prints...in Germany, Holland, Ireland, Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finnland. And Elisabeth war immer da -she made sure we had our tickets, suggested venues, got us talking, moved us on - she was wonderful.

Leipzig Day 3 16th March

nospam@example.com (Rosie Goldsmith) — 2012-03-16T17:17:00Z

Walking MILES is what you do at Fairs – anything is better than sitting at a desk all day! So today I walked from a Seminar on International Translation (excellent) to an interview with the Director of the Book Fair, Oliver Zille (equally excellent – what a visionary gentle-man) to battling with the Internet (opposite of excellent) to hearing one of my University German authors, Martin Walser, in conversation – now 85 and still eloquent and outspoken and challenging (excellent, ofcourse) to dinner later in ‘Goethe’s’ AuerbachsKeller: 20 or so ‘GI’s’ round a table in one of the most famous, friendliest, tastiest, most beautiful German restaurants I know. Gosh, we’ve known one another only a few days but we were laughing and joking and chatting about work and life as if we’d known one another for years. Trips like this are so important – not just for us all to get to know our trade (as translators, publishers, literary journalists etc.) but to network, to exchange ideas, to help one another. Worth its weight in gold. One happy group of ’GI’s’ hugging and saying ‘good-bye’ on the Augustusplatz ‘Round Midnight’ – the site of revolutions and political rallies: wouldn’t it be GREAT if this trip were to lead to another ‘revolution’ in the status of foreign fiction round the world?!

Trip to Berlin and the Leipzig book fair

nospam@example.com (Helen MacCormac) — 2012-03-16T15:18:36Z

Day 2 of the Leipziger Book Fair. Apart from all the authors and translators and readings, it's the books that really get me! It's almost impossible to move away from one book stand and on to the next. Of course Elisabeth Pyroth had another list of great events for us this morning. So, it's no wonder I managed to miss lunch again. Coffee's the word until this evening when we get to go to Auerbachs Keller thanks to the Goethe Institut. Then it's off to the translators reception and a final chance to meet other translators before heading home tomorrow. It's been amazing.

Übersetzen ist nicht einfach

nospam@example.com (Fiona Rintoul) — 2012-03-16T11:45:52Z

Das weißt schon jeder, der es schon mal probiert hat. Übersetzungen und das Können des Übersetzers werden aber öfters unterbetwertet, besonders in Großbritannien, wo wir immer weniger Wert auf Fremdsprachenkentnisse überhaupt legen, was wirklich "our loss" ist. Hier in Deutschland ist es anders - das ist mir während dieser Reise sehr klar geworden.

Die Schwiergkeiten des Übersetzens wurden Gestern abend bei der Verleihung des Buchpreises der Leipziger Messe wunderbar dargestellt. Die Preisträgerin, Christina Viragh, hatte etwa vier Jahre gebraucht, um ihre Übersetzung des Péter Nádas Romans Parellelgeschichten aus dem Ungarischen zu schaffen. Das Buch ist auf deutsch auch wesentlich länger geworden, hat sie später auf dem Blauen Sofa erklärt, weil deutsch und ungarisch einfach so anders sind.

Ungarisch ist natürlich eine besonders schwierige Sprache, die mit den anderen europäischen Sprachen überhaupt nichts zu tun hat. Sie ist, wie es in der Begründung Viraghs Gewinns lautet, eine Sprache so fremd, daß sogar Restaurant nicht Restaurant heißt. Da müßte ich an meiner ersten Reise nach Ungarn denken. Vorher habe ich ein Paar Ausdrücke gelernt. Zuerste traute ich mich aber nicht, sie zu sagen, weil sie so wunderbar exotisch klangen. Ich habe dann sehr unsicher mit Yo napod angefangen (Guten Tag), und es kam sofort die Antwort Yo napod, und dann war alles okay.

Es gab auch Gestern Abend veilleicht eine Trost für die mütige Übersetzerin (außer dem Preis natürlich); sie hat es angeblich nicht so schwer als die Ehefrau des Preisträgers in der Kategorie Sachbuch/Essayistik, Jörg Baberowski, des Autors von Verbrannten Erde: Stalins Herrschaft der Gewalt. Sie müßte damit klar kommen, hat der Herr Baberowski bei der Verleihung erklärt, daß Stalin jahrelang bei ihr Hausgast war. Na ja.

(Und was heißt denn tatsächlich Restaurant auf ungarisch? Es heißt Étterem - und Bier heißt sör. Jetzt wissen Sie schon das Wichtigste.)

Die Zukunft unabhängiger Verlage + Christian Kracht-Debatte

nospam@example.com (Lasse Rask Hoff) — 2012-03-16T11:07:40Z

Lasse Hoff, Verlag Rosenkilde & Bahnhof, Kopenhagen, Zweite Aufzeichnung:

Leipzig liest wirklich – und hört! Donnerstag hat für mich viele Erlebnisse enthalten sowohl im schönen Messengelände, wie in der Bibliotheca Albertina (Leipziger Uni-Bibliothek) und in der Moritzbastei – dieser stimmungsvolle Veranstaltungsort in den Ruinen der alten Stadtbefestigung, wo die Lange Leipziger Lesenacht stattfindet.

Wichtig für mich als Teil eines unabhängigen Verlags war ein Gespräch unter den Namen „Die Zukunft unabhägiger Verlage“, wo Verleger aus Deutschland, USA und Schweiz diese Thema und die generelle Lage der Branche diskutierten. Ganz wie in Dänemark gerade, wurde die Buchpreisbindung (Faste bogpriser) viel besprochen. In Schweiz ist sie vor einigen Tagen nur aufgehoben worden, in Deutschland befürchten viele, dass etwas Ähnliches hier unterwegs ist. Der Amerikanischen Verläger hatte nichts Gutes über freien Preisen zu sagen und sprach u.A. viel vom Dominanz Amazons.

Am Abend war ich unter Anderem an einer Lesung in der Uni-Bibliothek mit Christian Kracht, dessen Roman „Imperium“ gerade erschienen ist. Kracht und sein Roman ist im Moment überall in den Medien, nach einem heftigen Angriff im Spiegel, der ihm Faschismus und Rassismus vorwirft. Das hat natürlich eine gewaltsame Debatte ausgelöst. Nach einer Stunde musste ich leider gehen, deswegen weiss ich nicht ob es danach eine Diskussion gab, und wenn, ob die Medien-Debatte genannt wurde …

Leipziger Buchpreis zur Europäischen Verständigung 2012

nospam@example.com (Ulla Rieck ) — 2012-03-15T23:04:56Z

Begleitet von wunderbarer Musik des Gewandhausorchesters wurde im Rahmen der feierlichen Eröffnung der Leipziger Buchmesse der Preis zur Europäischen Verständigung 2012 vergeben.
Neben dem Amerikaner Timothy Snyder erhielt der britische Historiker Ian Kershaw die bedeutende Auszeichnung und faszinierte das Publikum vor allem durch seine hervorragenden Deutschkenntnisse. Ein Blick in seinen CV verrät dann auch, dass er Ende der 60er Jahre am Goethe-Institut in Manchester Deutsch gelernt und fortan eine Faszination für die deutsche Geschichte und Gesellschaft gehabt hätte. Das ist doch ein beeindruckendes Beispiel gelungener und nachhaltiger Sprach- und Kulturvermittlung!

Leipzig literarisch im Rundgang

nospam@example.com (Rachel McNicholl) — 2012-03-15T23:01:15Z

Wer vor oder nach der Buchmesse Zeit hat, dem kann ich den Literarischen Rundgang mit Literaturwissenschaftlerin und Leipzigerin Dr. Kirsti Dubeck nur empfehlen:Literarischer Rundgang

Man kommt den grossen Schriftstellern und Schriftstellerinnen der deutschen Literatur des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts schon sehr viel näher, wenn man die Häuser, Passagen und Wirtshäuser kennenlernt, die mit ihnen und ihrem literarischen Milieu verbunden sind. Der Rundgang ist auch mit humorvollen Anekdoten aus den Archiven gespickt. Leipzig literarisch hat wohl schon seit eh und jeh Spass gemacht!