The 51st annual Frankfurt Book Fair opened officially late Tuesday afternoon, with organizers and locals in a cheery mood. After all, Guenter Grass last month won the Nobel Prize for Literature, which has unleashed a storm of interest and publicity about his work and that of more recent post-war German writers; at its final session this summer, the European Commission did not take a decision on cross-border book price fixing between Germany and Austria (an issue that some fear could lead to an end to price fixing on books within Germany); and the German economy is picking up, which is reflected in part in a 3% jump in retail book sales in August.
Speaking at the standing-room-only opening ceremony, Michael Naumann, former head of Henry Holt and, oh yes, currently the German minister for cultural affairs and the media, showed his German side by waxing eloquently and earnestly about literature and the book -- and about the need to launch "a new cultural education offensive." He added: "If there is any message which the literary work has for us all, it is this: in understanding, in interpreting as one reads, the experience of the writer shines through, the experience of being in complete command in a world of his or her own making, in other words, of being a free person."
Naumann bemoaned that a dialogue between eastern and western Europe was broken for much of this century, but noted happily that having Hungary as the focal country at this fair helps to resume that dialogue. He also praised Hungary for opening the Iron Curtain to East Germans 10 years ago, a move that was a catalyst for the collapse of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany.
As if to prove Naumann's point about the value and importance of European literary dialogue, Hungarian president and writer Arpad G ncz told of the three books that he treasured and helped sustain him while in prison under the old regime: a volume of p try by Hungarian Attila Jozsef; the Joseph tetralogy by German master Thomas Mann; and Sketches from a Hunter's Album by the Russian Ivan Turgenev.
Noting that Hungarian is linguistically isolated from most other languages -- making "greater use of images and...closer to the origin of languages" -- G ncz recommended Hungarian literature "to veryone who is prepared to recognize the common human spirit in the other, the familiar unknown. I hope you will discover and perhaps even love this different world seen through our eyes."
Other speakers included Frankfurt's Mayor, Petra Roth, and Peter Esterhazy, who provided the ceremony's main entertainment. (For example, one of the advantages of speaking Hungarian is that "when you're speaking it and someone listens, you know they're Hungarian.")
