Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

FRANKFURT

Star authors en vogue at Frankfurt Book Fair

Margaret Atwood, Dan Brown and Nicholas Sparks are among the big names descending on Frankfurt this week as the world's oldest book fair glams up for the Instagram generation, hoping to wow the crowds with "live events" by star authors.

Published: 8 October 2017 09:34 CEST
Star authors en vogue at Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair in 2016. File photo: DPA

And with France as this year's guest country it's not just writers who are getting top billing: President Emmanuel Macron is set to formally open the fair with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday, accompanied by a who's-who of the French literary scene.

After last year's edition focused on ways for publishers to tap into new technologies such as virtual reality and 3D printing, organisers this year are going back to basics, putting the spotlight back on writers and their readers.

“There's a desire to see authors, to experience them in real life,” the fair's spokeswoman Katja Böhne told reporters ahead of the five-day event, expected to attract over 270,000 visitors.

“The book is more alive than ever,” Böhne said, describing a growing trend of fans queuing to see their favourite author in a “pop concert-like” atmosphere.

Legendary Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood, whose 1985 dystopian novel “The Handmaid's Tale” is now a successful TV show, will be among the top draws in Frankfurt where she will be presented with the German book trade's “peace prize” for her prescient body of work.

Fairgoers are also expected to jostle for a glimpse of US romance novelist Nicholas Sparks, whose mega-hits include “The Notebook” and “Message in a Bottle”, while historical thriller writer Ken Follett, Irish novelist Cecelia Ahern, and Paula Hawkins of “The Girl on the Train” fame will likewise draw readers hoping for an autograph or a selfie.

But the undisputed highlight comes on Saturday, when Dan Brown presents his new thriller “Origin” — the latest instalment in the bestselling “The Da Vinci Code” series — in front of an audience of 1,800 book lovers.

In what has been billed a “live event” with tickets selling for 24.50 euros ($29), Brown will lift the veil on professor Robert Langdon's latest high-adrenaline quest to unravel the mysteries of the universe.

“An event like this, that attracts nearly 2,000 people, we couldn't have done that in the past,” said the fair's director Juergen Boos, adding that he planned to “massively expand” on the concept in the coming years.

“Our industry simply has to think about image as well, we have to make our business more glamorous,” he said.

Guest nation France will lead by example by bringing over 180 writers to Germany, including some of the world's best-known French-language authors.

The star-studded line-up boasts serial provocateur Michel Houellebecq, new-enfant-terrible-on-the-block Edouard Louis, acclaimed Congolese novelist Alain Mabanckou and Moroccan-born Leila Slimani, who scared parents everywhere with her award-winning tale of a killer nanny.

Macron and Merkel will sprinkle some political stardust on the literary extravaganza when they open the French pavilion on the eve of the fair. Their high-profile joint appearance comes as the French leader seeks to strengthen the German-Franco tandem in his push for European reforms.

“The presence of Chancellor Merkel and President Macron at the opening of the Frankfurter Buchmesse symbolises the close relationship between Germany and France and their commitment to a strong, unified Europe,” said Boos.

This year's fair will also be politically charged in other ways, with organisers planning to highlight concerns about freedom of expression in Turkey, where several German nationals have been detained in what Germany described as politically motivated cases that have strained ties between Ankara and Berlin.

The former editor-in-chief of Turkish opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet, Can Dundar, who faces imprisonment in Turkey, will speak about writing in exile, while supporters of Germany's jailed Die Welt correspondent Deniz Yucel will stage events calling for his release under the banner #Freedeniz.

The Frankfurt book fair is the world's largest publishing event, bringing together over 7,000 exhibitors from more than 100 countries.

It dates back to the Middle Ages, with the first edition taking place shortly after the Gutenberg printing press was invented in nearby Mainz.

READ ALSO: 7 unmissable events from around Germany in October 2017

HISTORY

‘Lost’ manuscript of pro-Nazi French author published 78 years later

A book by one of France's most celebrated and controversial literary figures arrives in bookstores this week, 78 years after the manuscript disappeared

Published: 4 May 2022 11:42 CEST
'Lost' manuscript of pro-Nazi French author published 78 years later

It is a rare thing when the story of a book’s publication is even more mysterious than the plot of the novel itself.

But that might be said of Guerre (War) by one of France’s most celebrated and controversial literary figures, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, which arrives in bookstores on Thursday, some 78 years after its manuscript disappeared.

Celine’s reputation has somehow survived the fact that he was one of France’s most eager collaborators with the Nazis.

Already a superstar thanks to his debut novel Journey to the End of the Night (1932), Celine became one of the most ardent anti-Semitic propagandists even before France’s occupation.

In June 1944, with the Allies advancing on Paris, the writer abandoned a pile of his manuscripts in his Montmartre apartment.

Celine feared rough treatment from authorities in liberated France, having spent the war carousing with the Gestapo, and giving up Jews and foreigners to the Nazi regime and publishing racist pamphlets about Jewish world conspiracies.

For decades, no one knew what happened to his papers, and he accused resistance fighters of burning them. But at some point in the 2000s, they ended up with retired journalist Jean-Pierre Thibaudat, who passed them – completely out of the blue – to Celine’s heirs last summer.

‘A miracle’
Despite the author’s history, reviews of the 150-page novel, published by Gallimard, have been unanimous in their praise.

“The end of a mystery, the discovery of a great text,” writes Le Point; a “miracle,” says Le Monde; “breathtaking,” gushes Journal du Dimanche.

Gallimard has yet to say whether the novel will be translated.

Like much of Celine’s work, Guerre is deeply autobiographical, recounting his experiences during World War I.

It opens with 20-year-old Brigadier Ferdinand finding himself miraculously alive after waking up on a Belgian battlefield, follows his treatment and hasty departure for England – all based on Celine’s real experiences.

His time across the Channel is the subject of another newly discovered novel, Londres (London), to be published this autumn.

If French reviewers seem reluctant to focus on Celine’s rampant World War II anti-Semitism, it is partly because his early writings (Guerre is thought to date from 1934) show little sign of it.

Journey to the End of the Night was a hit among progressives for its anti-war message, as well as a raw, slang-filled style that stuck two fingers up at bourgeois sensibilities.

Celine’s attitude to the Jews only revealed itself in 1937 with the publication of a pamphlet, Trifles for a Massacre, which set him on a new path of racial hatred and conspiracy-mongering.

He never back-tracked. After the war, he launched a campaign of Holocaust-denial and sought to muddy the waters around his own war-time exploits – allowing him to worm his way back into France without repercussions.

‘Divine surprise’
Many in the French literary scene seem keen to separate early and late Celine.

“These manuscripts come at the right time – they are a divine surprise – for Celine to become a writer again: the one who matters, from 1932 to 1936,” literary historian Philippe Roussin told AFP.

Other critics say the early Celine was just hiding his true feelings.

They highlight a quote that may explain the gap between his progressive novels and reactionary feelings: “Knowing what the reader wants, following fashions like a shopgirl, is the job of any writer who is very financially constrained,” Celine wrote to a friend.

Despite his descent into Nazism, he was one of the great chroniclers of the trauma of World War I and the malaise of the inter-war years.

An exhibition about the discovery of the manuscripts opens on Thursday at the Gallimard Gallery and includes the original, hand-written sheets of Guerre.

They end with a line that is typical of Celine: “I caught the war in my head. It is locked in my head.”

In the final years before his death in 1961, Celine endlessly bemoaned the loss of his manuscripts.

The exhibition has a quote from him on the wall: “They burned them, almost three manuscripts, the pest-purging vigilantes!”

This was one occasion – not the only one – where he was proved wrong.

SHOW COMMENTS