All seems to have been forgiven after the occasionally testy exchanges between some American and other English-language exhibitors and the Frankfurt Book Fair management last year.

Among the measures taken to soothe relations, fair management decided immediately not to repeat the "experiment" that caused last year's contretemps—keeping the halls open several hours later than usual on Friday evening so that the public could have a preview of the show. Perhaps more important, management has shortened the fair by one day, so that it ends on Sunday, its fifth day, a popular move among foreign exhibitors. As a result, the first three days, Wednesday through Friday, October 6—8 this year, remain the traditional trade days (when most rights deals are made), and the fair will be open to the public only on Saturday and Sunday.

One sign of patched-up relations: the English-language exhibition area, Hall 8, is sold out and has a waiting of list of almost 20 even after management expanded the space "down to the very last corner." (The fair attributed some of the expansion to the attendance of more mid-sized publishers from South Africa and Australia; Down Under attendance will be up 61%.) In announcing the SRO situation, the fair management apparently couldn't resist a dig at a growing rival, noting that "the Frankfurt Book Fair brings together more than twice as many British exhibitors as the London Book Fair."

Another sign of improved relations: a major New York publisher that severely cut back its presence at Frankfurt last year—whose German ownership made the move all the more eye-opening and a politically palatable precedent for other unhappy American publishers—has reversed itself. Speaking to PW in June, John Sargent, head of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group USA, said that most of his concerns about the fair have been addressed adequately, so St. Martin's and Holt will return with a much larger presence than last year. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux had retained its booth last year.) Besides the end of extended Friday hours and the shortening of the fair by a day, some hotels' agreement not to require a six-night minimum stay helped persuade him to change his mind, Sargent said.

Still, Frankfurt is a show and city many Americans attendees love to grumble about—almost as much as they adore the London Book Fair and London itself. Frankfurt the city has much more of interest than American attendees give it credit for. As for the fair, director Volker Neumann, brought in two years ago, has tried, with some obvious failures but many successes, to improve the show experience for the important English-language exhibitors. (The failures stem from Neumann's other major task: enlivening the fair for its other major constituency, the German-language book world and German readers, who flock to the fair by the tens of thousands on the weekend.) Neumann has noted that the more than 2,000 English-language exhibitors at the fair are the single-largest contingent, next to the German-language exhibitors, and commented last month: "For us, the Anglophone book market continues to be the most important international growth market."

Among Neumann's major efforts: trying to loosen local hotels' usurious policies and putting a brake on exhibition fee hikes. In addition, this year the Literary Agents Center, whose position the last two years high atop Hall 6 was criticized by many, has been moved down a level. Neumann himself confessed that "this may seem a minor matter, but the move links the LitAg far better into the structure of the fair and means that agents and publishers can get from one place to another at the fair far more quickly." At least 400 literary agents and rights dealers are expected to attend.

Fair Highlights

This year's fair is expected to be even larger than last year's, when there were 290,000 visitors (180,000 from the trade) and 6,600 exhibitors from more than 100 countries.

Two Tuesday events popular with Americans are the International Rights Directors meeting and the International Supply Chain Specialists meeting. The rights directors meet from 2—5 p.m. in the Alliance/Entente room in Hall 4.c. This year's program focuses on doing business in Asia, particularly in China, Japan, Korea and Thailand.

The supply chain specialists group holds its 26th annual meeting from 10 a.m.—4 p.m., in Room Europa in Hall 4.0. Sponsored by EDItEUR and the Boersenverein (the German publishers, wholesalers and booksellers association, which owns the fair), the group focuses on "the application of technology to the entire supply chain for books, journals and related media." In other words, this is the place where book people from around the world speak—in English—about various cutting-edge programs and technologies that have helped make the supply chain more efficient. Among topics in recent years: EDI, RFI, print-on-demand, automatic warehouses and enough bar code information to scan for hours.

With the theme "publishing solutions," the innovation forum returns for its second year to Hall 4.2. Service providers will focus primarily on content management, data management, e-publishing and content marketing and prepress services.

The new digital marketplace in Hall 4.2 similarly will offer a place for software and multimedia publishers, e-publishers and others to talk about e-publishing and content management.

Last year's debut film and TV forum and its cinema, which played to 95% capacity, continue their runs. At the cinema, audiences saw movies such as In America before they opened in local theaters. This year the 400-seat theater will also feature previews of literary and author adaptations and some Arab films. The forum will include, for the first time, a collective stand organized by Export-Union des Deutschen Films, at which German companies and associations will promote German cinema as well as Germany as a film location.

In addition, publishing companies and agents can rent tables in the new International Agents Centre for Adaptations and Screenplays, where they can meet contacts from film and TV. For their part, producers can use the screening rooms to show their previous work to potential partners. As part of this effort, the book fair is offering a preview service whereby publishers can submit summaries of their titles for presentation in the Web version of the Frankfurt Rights Catalogue.

And, of course, the film and TV forum will display books related to film and TV.

The International Booksellers Center in Hall 4.0, a place with a comfortable and favorably priced cafeteria, is, for the first time, open to all trade visitors.

Among other highlights:

  • In its fifth year, the popular "Fascination Comics" area and comics center in Hall 3.0 include exhibitions, signings, games and the Comics Cafe. Sunday will be Manga Sunday (anyone dressed in manga costume is allowed in for free), and a series called "Comics from..." will allow countries to show their latest productions to the public. Graphic novelists who will appear include Marjane Satrapi, whose Persepolis titles (published here by Pantheon) have been international bestsellers.

  • The audiobooks forum is in Hall 4.1 and is organized by the Boersenverein's audiobook committee, which has noted that audiobook sales grew 10% in Germany last year.

  • The children's and "teen literature" center in Hall 3.0, which draws many authors and illustrators.

  • The educational forum in Hall 3.1, which focuses on political education, "blended learning" sciences and schoolbooks.

  • The fiction/crime forum in Hall 4.1 highlights everything from bestsellers and first novels to memoirs, crime fiction and modern poetry.

  • Book sales will be allowed throughout the show at the seven forums and Reading Marquee and everywhere at the fair on Sunday. Sales to the public must be made at the full legal price. Show attendees can receive a trade discount.

  • For those who like a bit of pomp and circumstance, the fair's opening ceremony, held on Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the Congress Center, offers florid speeches and sometimes touching moments. In the past, speakers have included prime ministers, presidents and the German chancellor and foreign minister—and, not long after the fatwa against him, a surprise appearance by Salman Rushdie.

Guest of Honor

One of the most striking aspects of this year's fair is the guest of honor, which in contrast to recent years is not a country, but a region: the Arab World. (Latin America and Africa were guests of honor in 1976 and 1980, respectively.) German organizers diplomatically commented on American foreign policy last year by awarding the highly prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to Susan Sontag, who, of course, has been highly critical of the Bush Administration. This year it's difficult not to believe that once again some commentary was intended by the selection of the Arab World for this highly visible honor; the choice is also representative of the fair's vision of itself as a builder of international cultural bridges. As fair director Neumann put it last month, "Never before will there have been so many encounters between intellectuals from the Arab world and from Europe or the U.S.A. It is high time for these meetings if we are not to become mutually entangled in our prejudices."

The 22 countries that are members of the League of Arab States will present a literary and cultural program that will include appearances by more than 200 authors, a similar number of cultural events in Frankfurt and a full film program at the Frankfurt Film Museum. The coordinating organization is Alesco, the Arab League Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization whose headquarters is in Tunisia. The Literaturhaus, not far from the fair grounds, will host readings by more than 80 writers and poets, as well as offer presentations and symposia on such topics as the Arab presence in Western literature, the history of Arab literature, current literary trends and developments in the Arab world. The Goethe University, also near the fair grounds, is hosting an exhibition called "Science and Technology in Islam." The German Library will host a panel discussion on women and their rights in the Arab world, and Amin Maalouf will talk about the "double identities" of Arabs in the West. The Museum of World Cultures will hold panel discussions on women's creativity in contemporary Arabic literature and the arts as well as people and traditions in the Arab world. The Museum of Applied Arts is putting on an exhibition on Arabic calligraphy, as well as concerts and readings. The fair's Forum building has a pavilion for the Library of Alexandria, whose program includes a lecture by the library's director on its contribution to world cultures and a lecture by Dr. Butros Butros-Ghali, the former secretary general of the United Nations, on reform and human rights in the Arab world. Other seminars in the Forum address feminist literature in the Arab world, women in politics, trends in Arabic poetry and "mutual misperceptions" between the Arab world and Europe.

Some observers feared that only "approved" writers would appear, but Neumann has said that Alesco has invited "authors who have fallen out of favor politically in their own countries or in one of the individual member countries."

Ibrahim El-Moaellem, chairman of the Arab Publishers Association and chairman of both Egyptian Publishers Press and Dar El Shorouk, estimated that there are more than 1,000 active independent publishers in the Arab world who put out between 20,000 and 31,000 titles altogether. (About 200 publishers will exhibit at Frankfurt.) Along with distributors and libraries, they import some $40 million worth of books and magazines. Piracy continues to be a problem, although publishers report some successes, and some Arab states censor or ban books.

The International Centre offers a schedule that follows a theme from day to day at the same time slot. From 3—4:30 p.m each day, the center will offer discussions of East-West relations, censorship in the Arab world and the potential for modernization. From 10—11:15 a.m., the theme is "crossing borders." From 11:30 a.m.—1 p.m., the program offers "special interest debates" on a range of subjects. From 1:30—2:30 p.m., the program highlights "other literatures," featuring authors from Latin America, the Balkans, Iraq and Korea. At 5 p.m., the center will present a book or an author.

Next year's guest of honor is Korea.