It's a rush at the Frankfurter Hof. This Tuesday, October 15, on the eve of the official opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, in Germany, the biggest event in world publishing, we are jostling on the ground floor of this large hotel on faded chandelier. A glass of white wine in hand, a man makes his way to the patio, trying not to snag his tote bag in the crowd. A woman, looking lost, greets colleagues from afar while trying to approach the important ones, caught in deep conversations with other more important ones who are seated.
To the right of the entrance, Olivier Nora, the boss of Grasset, seated on a pale blue sofa facing a coffee table, is deep in conversation with a foreign editor. A few steps further, Susanna Lea, the English agent who navigates between her offices in Paris, London and New York, and currently manages the worldwide release of the Memoirs of Alexeï Navalny, the Russian opponent who died in February, has also trusted a seat with his whole team.
Facing the entrance, Vera Michalski, the Swiss president of Groupe Libella (Buchet-Chastel, Phébus, Noir sur Blanc, etc.), gives discreet nods to her acquaintances. A meter from her, Andrew Wylie, the all-powerful American literary agent of Salman Rushdie, Sally Rooney, Martin Amis and Louise Glück, dominates the room with his aura. “If a bomb exploded here right now, there would be no book industry.” slips a regular. He's not wrong. Every autumn, for seventy-six years, it is in Frankfurt am Main, for five days, that the most prominent books are sold and bought, alliances between international publishers are forged, and relationships are sealed. destined for tomorrow's bestsellers.
Here, we sell rights (of translation, publication, adaptation), but on the 37,000 square meters of the fair site, within the six immense gray halls in the heart of the city where 4,000 exhibitors from 95 countries present their production, difficult to buy a book. The majority of the examples that decorate the stands are exhibition models. Writers are largely discouraged from participating. All professionals agree on one point: Frankfurt is first and foremost for B to B (business to business). Not a place for authors. There are, however, some exceptions to the rule.
This Tuesday evening, at the Frankfurter Hof, the Englishman Ken Follett, the only international author to come every year, pours himself a glass of champagne at a table near the bar, surrounded by his clan, formed as a small business, The Follett Office. Other writers are also in town for various events: the American Siri Hustvedt, for an evening in memory of her husband, Paul Auster, who died in April, the Turkish Elif Shafak, for the inaugural speech of the ceremony opening (where she insisted on the role of ” resistance ” of literature in today's world), the Israeli Yuval Noah Harari, superstar author of Sapiens, came to present his latest book to the world, Nexus…
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Source: Lemonde