Book Fair Post Mortem

Easing back into blogging, I thought I'd do a nice easy What Katy Did in Frankfurt post. Except of course nothing is easy these days, so it'll be a bit of a shit sandwich.

I skipped the book fair last year because I had had a tough time in my personal life and needed a rest. The contrast was all the more stark. Because exhibitor numbers are down, my international publishers were no longer miles away in Hall 8, necessitating long and hasty dashes to appointments, but relatively central in Hall 6. And because of global warming, the sun was shining. The effect, though, was a pleasant one: even though it's still a huge event, this time it felt more friendly and social. All six remaining halls are arranged around a central square dotted with pricey food trucks and odd constructions hosting extra events. So instead of walking between them along glassed-in walkways reminiscent of airport interiors, everyone headed outside and the "Agora" became a great place for coincidental meetings. Special thanks to Simone Buchholz here for the spontaneous ibuprofen/hug combination. But also to all the other people I ran into or met up with outside.

Number-one talk of the fair was the dearth of publishers' parties, followed as usual by the imminent death of the publishing industry. I still managed to go to two parties every night, though, so maybe things aren't drying up that fast... A friend who knows about the events industry tells me that sometimes, the money is actually there but the managers don't want to give the impression they're frittering it away. Sartorially, though, it was a disappointingly sombre affair, meaning I stood out like a sore thumb in my optimistic colours, especially at the parties. My advice: Dress for the publishing industry you want to be in, not for a Depeche Mode concert. Unless you want to be in aging goth publishing; in which case go ahead, you have my utmost respect.

On Friday night there were three levels of party insider status. Level one (and always my number-one Frankfurt party) was the German indies' party at the Literaturhaus, where anyone can attend for a small cover charge and drinks aren't free but cheap, with the dancing starting immediately after the awards ceremony (more on that below). Level two was the Dumont party, where you had to be on the invitation list and the drinks were free and everything was like it always is – crowded, dancefloor too packed for self-expression, much standing around and chatting to German publishing people – so much so that some people got confused about whose party it was, and possibly what year it was. It was there that I learned about insider level three, the Canongate party, for which you needed a paper invitation. There were, however, paper invitations to be had from relative strangers from KiWi Verlag, if you asked nicely. I got one and it proclaimed something like "This is the last party we will ever have. You must come or you will be sacrificed to the gods of netflix and amazon prime. It will go on until 5 in the morning so that you will make foolish decisions on Saturday." At around 3 AM, my brain so numbed by talking to publishing people for three days in a row that I barely remembered the existence of this blog, I decided it would be cooler to have had an invitation for the level-three publishing party but not actually attended. The logic being that getting more sleep would enable me to go and see a particular band in Berlin on Saturday, which would be eminently cooler than hanging out with yet more tipsy/tired publishing people. So I passed the slightly crumpled card along to a friend.

Here comes the shit part: Nazis. Last year there was a lot of stress around events organized by extreme right-wing publishers, featuring extremist writers and politicians and rightly eliciting protests. This year, the book fair placed all the dodgy publishers in one remote corner – except one of them pulled off a scam, pretending to wind up their press and then registering for a stand under a different name, claiming they'd be presenting books about freedom of speech. They ended up in the midst of left-leaning indies, rubbing their hands in delight. To be honest, that felt like the kind of elaborate and childish provocation my sister used to practice on me when we were eight and ten, so like most other people, I followed my mum's advice and ignored them.

But on Friday, the AfD's Björn Höcke was slated to promote his hate-filled book How I Will Whittle Down Germany's Population to Keep Only the Strong and the Blond (not actual title). This year the fair put him in a separate room and restricted access, blocking off escalators for much of an afternoon and calling in a significant police presence. Plain-clothes police officers threatened protesters and were generally more heavy-handed than one would expect at a publishing industry event – writer Sophie Sumburane was ejected from the premises for no explicable reason. Inside the promotion itself, a book fair representative ended up reassuring reporters that they were of course within their rights to record the proceedings, never mind what the organizers said, but television cameras were not allowed access. To be honest, the less airtime devoted to platforming Björn Höcke's hateful ideas the better, but the principle of excluding parts of the press is wrong.

If the book fair is serious about promoting human rights, it would do well to rethink hosting individuals known for propagating racism and belittling genocide. Things were better this year, I believe, with no reports of violence. But the book fair must be a safe place for all those who attend, and hosting Nazis makes it a dangerous place for many of us.

Back to the plus side: the blocked escalators meant I discovered the halal food outlet hidden away at the back of hall 4.0, which sold "Desi food like back home", including excellent samosas served up with cheeky quips. They'll be there next year too, so that and the supermarket outside hall 5 for affordable Coke Zero and emergency hosiery (if they don't demolish hall 5 as rumour has it) would be my top tips.

And now to my highlight, the olive on a cocktail stick pierced through the shit sandwich. The most delightful of all the delightful people to spend time with at the book fair were the people from Verbrecher Verlag. They never mince words – they'll let you know you if they think your idea is crap or if a book won't sell – so you can tell they really believe in what they do. They've begun championing bibliodiversity, changing their catalogue up from dude-heavy to a more balanced mix, with the women they publish selling more, it turns out, and garnering honours galore. Plus they're supportive and kind and funny. This year they were basically running around picking up prizes: Manja Präkels won the German YA Prize for Als ich mit Hitler Schnapskirschen aß, a novel about growing up with neo-Nazis in rural East Germany. I met her and she was lovely and very funny and got me a free copy. Bettina Wilpert accepted the aspekte debut novel prize for Nichts, was uns passiert, about a rape and the devastating ripples it causes. At the Hotlist indies awards on Friday – where ten publishers all got a prize each, a room full of love and support with slightly too little ventilation – that same title also won the Melusine Huss Prize, voted on by independent booksellers. Seeing their excitement made me very happy.

I was too tired to make it to the gig on Saturday.

Frankfurted

I'm all Frankfurted out. It was lovely. Except when it was horrible and I'd had enough of seething masses of bodies and glossy displays and superficial conversation. But even then I ran into the perfect grumpy person with whom to indulge in a great moaning session.

I do love book fairs, and yes, I know I've told you that before. I love strolling around and meeting people and saying hello and getting chatting and exchanging compliments and swapping tips. Because it's the social aspect that counts most for me. I'm tempted to just write a long list of all the lovely people I met and all the lovely people I missed, but that might not be very interesting for anyone else. So here's what I did instead.

I hung out a little with Naveen Kishore and Sunandini Banerjee from Seagull Books, who publish many of my translations. Which is always a delight but suddenly got much more popular once they announced Mo Yan's Nobel win on Thursday lunchtime - because they have two of his books on their list. Lots of people kept popping by to congratulate them, total strangers included, who I suspect were pleased that a small (but perfectly formed) press based in Calcutta will benefit from the Nobel-imbued glory. Also I looked after their booth very briefly while they had an appointment elsewhere, which was the most fun ever. Did you ever go to furniture stores as a kid and play house? This was like that, only with real coffee. Would you like a catalogue, sir? They'll be right back in ten minutes, ma'am, do take a seat. Like being a housewife, I wouldn't want to do it all the time but short bursts are fine.

There were some other prizewinners too: Finn-Ole Heinrich won the German Children's Book Prize and Anna Kim won the European Union Prize for Literature. I'm terribly pleased for both of them. You can read one of Finn's short stories in my translation at Words Without Borders and you'll soon(ish) be able to read Anna's The Anatomy of a Night from Frisch & Co. The German Book Prize winner Ursula Krechel was very present in general at the fair but I don't feel quite ready to comment on her book yet.

I also moderated an expert panel about the German book trade and translation funding. It was called a "morning briefing" because it started at 8.15 a.m. Actually it went fine, there were actually a number of people in the audience and none of them actually fell asleep. Amazingly, they also asked lots of questions. We'll probably do it again next year but I suggested a later time-slot - although it was a surreal experience to walk through the halls of an empty book fair.

What it meant, however, was that I had to go to bed early on Thursday night, in order to be sufficiently gorgeous on Friday morning to calm my nerves. Which was a good thing, as somebody took my photo afterwards ("That looks great. I'll just take another one though."). But it was not helped by someone inviting me to a surprise reading on Thursday ("It'll be great. And then we'll go to the XY party, and then we'll go to the YX party, and then..."). I didn't go. A friend of mine has a wonderful motto for times like these: Willst du gelten, mach dich selten. It doesn't work when the fomo gets this acute though. And it doesn't help when the trade press publishes full-colour spreads of publishing people partying. Every day of the fair. But hey, I never get invited to those parties anyway and I'm not terribly good at gatecrashing.

So I had to make up for it on Friday night. My divine hosts treated me to home-cooked dinner and made me break the golden rule: First eye make-up, then schnapps. Doh! Nobody commented though. And then it was off to the Hotlist indie book award ceremony and party. After various rather out-there events in previous years (difficult locations, wacky moderators), this time was lower key and just plain better. The lovely Axel von Ernst and Thomas Böhm did the honours in a totally un-hysterical manner and the prize went to the excellent Droschl Literaturverlag of Vienna for Tor Ulven's Dunkelheit am Ende des Tunnels. It's a translation from the Norwegian, and I'd have forgiven the excited publisher for not thanking the translator in person if it hadn't just proved very difficult to find his name on their website. It's Bernhard Strobel, and I found it on Amazon in the end. The prize money goes straight to the publishers for their hard work, and I do understand the logic of that, but still. Congratulations, Bernhard Strobel. They couldn't have done it without you.

There followed a party. There were drinks (some of them cold), there was dancing, there was much standing around chatting and drinking, there was an apology to someone for un-friending them on Facebook but they hadn't even noticed - bizarrely, because I post way too much on Facebook - there was a whispered poem about fat, there was a numismatic exchange and an explanation of fomo to the main culprit, there were compliments from the kind of people who count (i.e. women with impeccable taste), there was a failed attempt to recruit a new DJ partner, there were sleepless Cubans, there were more drinks, there were embarrassing spillages from my purse, there was a fantastic staircase at the Literaturhaus that was unfortunately too crowded with bodies to recreate any Hollywood movies, there was totally tactless discussion of facial hair fashions, there was an apology to someone for having written he looked like a bum - he doesn't, he looks like an angel - there were some more drinks and not enough dancing, there were uncalled-for confessional moments.

Then it seemed like a good idea to go to the Hoff. Everybody talks about it at the fair, all the Americans are like, "You gotta go to the Hoff!" and I'm like, "Well..." Really it's the Frankfurter Hof incredibly posh hotel, where I was overwhelmed by the prices and the carpets but underwhelmed by the bathrooms and the people-watching. Nobody was lying across Alice Schwarzer's lap, in fact Alice Schwarzer wasn't even there, and nor was Arnold Schwarzenegger. There was a man with a bad wig coming on to a very young blonde woman and another man who was rude about Acton. I left before finding out what unspeakable thing my companion did there last year.

Life will seem so dull now.

Hotlist Shortlist 2012

They've announced the ten titles in the running for the German-language independent book award by the name of Hotlist 2012. The name doesn't make sense, of course, but is presumably the result of the award originally being a kind of last-minute idea by twenty indie publishers who didn't spend hours and hours haggling over whether the name made sense. It's a hot list of books, and that's that.

The books are:

Jeffrey Yang: Ein Aquarium. Berenberg Verlag, tr. Beatrice Faßbender. American poems.

Miklós Vajda: Mutter im amerikanischen Rahmen. Braumüller Verlag, tr. Timea Tankó. Hungarian mother-son novel.

Angelika Meier: Heimlich, heimlich mich vergiss. Diaphenes Verlag. Rather bizarre German novel about a remote mountain psychiatric clinic, I believe. Ring any bells?

Tor Ulven: Dunkelheit am Ende des Tunnels. Droschl Verlag, tr. Bernhard Strobel. Dark Norwegian short stories.

Michèle Roten: Wie Frau sein. Echtzeit Verlag. I think this is non-fiction, looking at the state of feminism in real life.

Lukas Meschik. Luzidin oder die Stille. Jung und Jung Verlag. Austrian meta-novel.

Peter Gizzi. totsein ist gut in amerika. Luxbooks, tr. Sylvia Geist, Simone Kornappel, Christian Lux, Daniela Seel, Jan Skudlarek, Andreas Bülhoff. More American poems, this time lower-case.

Robert Louis Stevenson: Der Pirat und der Apotheker. Peter Hammer Verlag, tr./ill. Henning Wagenbreth. Illustrated Scottish ballads.

Tamta Melaschwili: Abzählen. Unionsverlag. Three days of three children in a war zone.

Helon Habila: Öl aufs Wasser. Verlag Das Wunderhorn, tr. Thomas Brückner. Nigerian thriller/love story/utopian/dystopian novel.

Is that an eclectic list or what? It certainly reflects the cornucopia that is German/Austrian/Swiss independent publishing. Lots of translation, lots of experimentation, lots of beautifully made books.

My concern, however, is that I can't find any information about the prize money and who it goes to on either of the two Hotlist websites. Perhaps I'm being particularly dense at the moment, but it's unclear to me whether the money (and how much of it) goes to the publishing houses, the writers and/or the translators. And I think that ought to be made clearer.

The prizewinning book will be selected by a jury and announced at a flashy awards ceremony on 12 October at the Frankfurt Literaturhaus. Which is a good venue - not like last year's fiasco. And it would appear we will be spared the honour of Jakob Augstein presenting the event, after three years of agony. To be followed by dancing. What larks.

Update: Many thanks to Beatrice Faßbender, who kindly cleared up my confusion over the prize money in the comments section. It's €5000 and goes to the publishers.

What Happens in Frankfurt...

You're all going to Frankfurt, right? To the book fair I mean. And you all want to learn lots about the German book market and translation funding, I know you do. Then you need to come to this event which I am moderating! It is slightly early in the morning but I know how dedicated you all are. And it's free!

Another thing you probably want to do is go to the Hotlist indie book award ceremony and party, right? It's the same day! But later on. At the Literaturhaus Frankfurt. All the highlights on one day!

And one last thing: I know all German publishers read this. And you know you have my email address. It's time to invite me to your parties now. Thank you.

What Katy Did in Frankfurt

Hell, if my parents went ahead and called me Katy, I can go ahead and milk the What Katy Did thing as much as I like. I might even make it a regular series.

So, you've been wondering what Katy did at the book fair? I know you have. I know you've been drooping in front of your computer screens with your tongues hanging out, waiting for all the juicy details. Well, here they come. Some of them.

This was my third visit to the Frankfurt Book Fair, but the first time I've really done it properly, in the actual having meetings and drinking heavily way. I'm not sure what I did the other times; probably just wandered the halls feeling lost and hung out in the Translators' Centre. Oh yeah, that was it.

This year, they made it more difficult for me to hide by abolishing the Translators' Centre. But in fact they replaced it with something else that was exactly the same; same chairs and tables, same place in Hall 5, same pointless registration desk, same neighbours, same hundreds of translators slurping coffee and gossiping, same events programme (with different events, obviously), same idea of translators doing their work on a big screen for all to see; different name, different carpet. So that was one good place to hide, as was the "young publishers' island" or whatever it's called, where I went to sit in a booth and look blank. Thanks for that, guys, it was very restful.

In between all this, I met some editors and publishers and foreign rights people and did actual business. I didn't go to any book presentations or readings or anything, but I did sort of check out what books were on display. Including the German Book Prize winner Tauben fliegen auf, which even the publishers Jung & Jung obviously hadn't expected to win - it's out of print already, they're waiting for 20,000 extra copies but you can't get the damn thing for love nor money. So I sat down and read it for half an hour just in case anyone asked me (and yes, two people did). I was underwhelmed, but what can you expect in half an hour? Let's hope the narrative is the hook, because although the writing is fine and subtle, it didn't get my boat rocking. I promise to read it when it's available in bookstores again.

And other than that, I did the whole book fair kit and caboodle. In the evenings, I mean. That means:

1. I went to a posh hotel bar and had drinks on someone else's expense account while lounging on a sofa. Someone stole my friend's drink while we were there, which I suspect is not uncommon, and a man who looked like Jude Law gazed into space across the room, whereas a bigshot editor who didn't look like Jude Law ogled my legs. I think there should be a rule that only men who look like Jude Law get to ogle.
2. I went to a reception in a publishing house where I hardly knew anybody, and of course the first person I did actually know didn't actually recognise me and the second person I knew got caught up in conversation with his editor. Luckily I had taken along some fellow liggers and changed into my best dress beforehand in a sort of dishwashing cubbyhole. I asked the man in there if it was OK and he didn't mind but said he couldn't close his eyes or his dishes wouldn't get clean. Anyway, the reception was very crowded indeed and there were free sarnies and wine, and complaints about the quality of said freebies. I think there should be a rule that people who get free food and drink should just shut up and enjoy it.
   
3. I went to the indie publishers' party, which was by far the best because any old hoi polloi could go along provided they paid the small cover charge. So I knew shitloads of really cool people there and kept greeting them effusively in a "Hey, I actually know someone!" kind of way. I think there should be a rule that, ummm, loads of people I know go to parties? Am I labouring this one too much?
4. I gatecrashed the same publisher's party twice. Turns out it's easier to get in if you're not on the list but accompanied by slightly drunk Germans who are on the list at about 1 a.m. than if you're not on the list but accompanied by very drunk Americans who are on the list at 3.30 a.m. Who'da thought it? Also at said party, I used the classic line: "I'd probably understand you better if I were sober." Always good for impressing important people. And I also let someone wind me up and prompt me to get all petulant and pathetic towards a seriously cool person, but I don't think many people noticed. Apart from said seriously cool person, and he may not remember it all that clearly.
   
5. I had the world's most awesome dinner with more cool people on another expense account, during which we planned the world's most awesome publishing party to unite the nations in, ummm, exchanging clothing, as I recall. And something about oranges, the juicy kind. Damn, I knew we should have written it down.
   
6. I discovered that good editors do not necessarily make good DJs. Sorry, but it's true. That's why they're editors and not internationally renowned disk jockeys jetsetting from Ibiza to New York to Berlin to Jakarta. But they do make good books.
7. I discovered the joy of drunken text messaging. May I just take this opportunity to apologise to all those people who got misspelled and pointless missives in the middle of the night? Thanks.
   

During all this, you must know, I had moments of extreme, and I mean extreme paranoia. Because for some reason, other people seemed to think I knew what I was doing and not actually bluffing my way around the whole thing. And I certainly wasn't going to let on that I had no idea what I was doing whatsoever. I think there should be a rule that everyone just assumes everyone else knows what they're doing. In fact, I think there already is.

And before you write rude anonymous comments, please consider that my everyday life is about as far removed from all this as you can imagine. Well, OK, I'm not a fruit fly in Addis Abeba, but you know. I'm a translator and I love German books.

Translators' Centres: One Down, One To Go

The news has been out for a while now but there's been surprisingly little fuss: due to cuts in public funding for culture under Germany's conservative-liberal coalition, there won't be a Translators' Centre at the next Frankfurt Book Fair. The cuts also affect the Goethe Institut's various translation funding programmes to the tune of 7%, so watch out for fewer books being translated out of German in the years to come.

The Translators' Centre was a wonderful invention, organised by Antje te Brake (who knows how to shake a leg on the dancefloor) in conjunction with the two professional organisations for translators in Germany, the BDÜ and the VdÜ. It was a place to meet colleagues and relax in a relatively calm atmosphere, it offered translators a stage of their own, it displayed a wonderful range of translated titles, it was a place where prizes were awarded and contacts were made. And although the Book Fair says translation-related events will still take place in the International Centre, I know I won't be the only person to miss it.

Bucking the trend though, London's come through this year: its new Literary Translation Centre will "bring together the publishing and translation communities to stimulate, inspire and raise the profile of literary translation in the UK," with a modest programme of events (but the London Book Fair is more modest than Frankfurt all round, and that's not all a bad thing). Top-notch movers and shakers like Anne McLean, David Constantine, Amanda Hopkinson and EJ Van Lanen will talk about the ins and outs of translation, bringing foreign literature to Britain and the US and why on earth it all matters.

I can't go.

Frankfurt

The Frankfurt Book Fair opens its doors this coming Tuesday.

I'm not going. Why not? Why won't I be rubbing shoulders with the publishing world, hobnobbing with the rich and famous and discussing Le Clézio over cocktails and canapés? Mainly personal, childcare-related reasons, actually. But also because, despite the wonderful events in the Translators' Centre, it's not actually geared to readers.

I have to admit I've only been once, and was thoroughly intimidated by the huge fortresses built up by the major UK/US publishers in their hall, specially designed to keep the professionals in and the riffraff out. The German publishers were slightly more approachable, as the fair is also a chance for them to present their products to booksellers and to a certain extent the general public. But for sheer accessibility of reading material, writers and events, there's just no topping the Leipzig Book Fair.
Plus I was put off by this posting, which revealed just how severely challenged I am in the bookfair footwear department.