On Friday, a planned celebration of Adania Shibli’s novel Minor Detail, at the Frankfurt Book Fair was cancelled by the prize organizers, following the violence of the last week in the Middle East that began with an attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7. The novel was being honored as the winner of the 2023 LiBeraturpreis, a German literature prize for a woman from the global south presented annually at the fair. Published by New Directions in the US and translated into English by Elisabeth Jaquette, Shibli’s book depicts, according to the NYT, “the true story of the 1949 […]
Book Fairs
Listening for Growth at LBF
The second day of a book fair always feels a little more familiar and easy to navigate. You think you know how to navigate the construction to avoid the most active cranes and trucks, and it turns out you can use most any entrance and now no one cares. You figure out how to avoid the 40-person line to get scanned for the sprawling rights center by cutting into the cafe on the left and swinging around. Lunch is still nothing but a selection of “sad sandwiches,” though you’ve found a slightly quieter bit of floor space in which to […]
Tower Cranes Loom Over Traditional London Book Fair
The tell comes as soon as you approach the venue: You may have heard that the Olympia, the venue for the London Book Fair, has some construction and expansion underway that could impact the show, even though none of this is made plain on their websites. But this is not an exhibition with a little rebuilding. Olympia is a massive $1.3 billion construction site, with at least nine tower cranes busily waving hello, built around a small, antiquated events center. (Think LaGuardia Airport, only more so.) There are three different entrances to the fair, each for different types of attendees […]
French Rights Manager Arrested Before LBF
Foreign rights manager for the French publisher Editions La Fabrique Ernest Moret, 29, was arrested on Monday at St Pancras Station in London on his way to the London Book Fair. When Moret arrived at the train station from Paris, two plainclothes London police officers stopped him on suspicion of terrorism, related to his participation in protests in Paris over Emmanuel Macron’s change to the pension age. The officers confiscated Moret’s phone and computer and he was arrested when he refused to give them the passcodes, the Guardian reports. Moret remains in custody. In a joint press release, Editions La Fabrique […]
London Book Fair Will Move to March
After this year’s April event, the London Book Fair will be held in March going forward. LBF changed their dates for next year after the announcement that the Bologna Children’s Book Fair would occur less than a week before their original dates. LBF will now be held March 12-14, 2024, while BCBF is April 8-11, 2024. More significantly, the change marks a standing change in London’s dates. LBF director Gareth Rapley said, “This will be a longer-term move to this period going forward, and we now are planning for LBF to be held around the same time in March from here on. […]
London Book Fair May Move 2024 Dates to Avoid Bologna
The London Book Fair is “investigating” moving their 2024 dates, after the Bologna Children’s Book Fair announced it would hold its fair less than a week before, the Bookseller reports. LBF announced in October that the next fair would be April 16 – 18, 2024. BCBF announced this month that it would hold its 2024 fair April 8 – 11. A change to the LBF dates would be contingent on availability of the venue, the Olympia London. “In any event, we will strive to ensure minimal disruption to our visitors,” LBF director Gareth Rapley told The Bookseller. “It is a shame that […]