There is a lot of activity in the Frankfurter Hof. This Tuesday, October 15, on the eve of the official opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, the world’s largest publishing event, we are squeezed on the ground floor of this grand hotel over a faded chandelier. With a glass of white wine in hand, a man heads to the patio, trying not to snag his bag in the crowd. A woman, with a lost face, greets her colleagues from afar while trying to get closer to the important ones, trapped in deep conversations with more important others who are sitting.
To the right of the entrance, Olivier Nora, Grasset’s boss, sits on a pale blue sofa in front of a coffee table, 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 who currently manages the global publication of the Memoirs of Alexeï Navalny, the Russian opponent who died in February, has also entrusted herself with a seat. with all his equipment.
In front of the entrance, Vera Michalski, Swiss president of the Libella Group (Buchet-Chastel, Phébus, Noir sur Blanc, etc.), discreetly nods to her acquaintances. One meter away 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.” a regular slides. You are not wrong. Every autumn, for seventy-six years, it is in Frankfurt am Main, for five days, where the most notable books are sold and bought, alliances are forged between international publishers and relationships are sealed for the bestsellers of tomorrow.
Here we sell rights (of translation, of publication, of adaptation), but in the 37,000 square meters of the fairgrounds, within the six immense gray pavilions in the heart of the city where 4,000 exhibitors from 95 countries present their production, they are difficult to buy. a book Most of the specimens that decorate the stands are exhibition models. Writers are largely discouraged from participating. All professionals agree on one point: Frankfurt is above all for B to B (business to business). It is not a place for authors. However, there are some exceptions to the rule.
This Tuesday afternoon, at the Frankfurter Hof, the Englishman Ken Follett, the only international author who comes every year, pours himself a glass of champagne at a table near the bar, surrounded by his clan, formed like a small company, The Follett Office. . Other writers are also in the city to attend 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 opening speech of the opening ceremony (where she insisted on the role of ” endurance ” of literature in today’s world), Israeli Yuval Noah Harari, superstar author of Sapiens, came to present his latest book to the world, Nexus…
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