Politics and art at the 68th Frankfurt Book Fair

“Since a purely economic approach to the European project clearly doesn’t have the necessary integrative power, we’d like to launch new discussions about substantive issues,” said Juergen Boos, director of the Frankfurt Book Fair. “We don’t want these discussions to take the form of navel-gazing by member states, but rather to incorporate current events and perspectives from around the globe and, in particular, debates about values such as freedom of speech and publication.”

Boualem Sansal, Elif Shafak, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Ian Kershaw, Herfried Münkler, Timothy Garton Ash and Bernhard Pörksen are just a few of the prominent thinkers and academics who will help shape the programme in the Weltempfang – Centre for Politics, Literature and Translation.

The Frankfurt Book Fair’s Guest of Honour this year provides an excellent example of how we can overcome borders and, together, focus on similarities in 2016. For, this year, the Guest of Honour isn’t a nation but a linguistic and cultural region. Flanders and the Netherlands’ exceptionally high number of new releases attests to how actively and successfully they have worked together: 422 titles in a wide range of genres, including literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s and young adult literature, comics and graphic novels.

THE ARTS+

What brings David Hockney, Jeff Jarvis, Julia Stoschek and Christiane zu Salm to the Frankfurt Book Fair this year? Why are many museums and institutions, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Google Cultural Institute exhibiting here? The answer is: THE ARTS+, a new fair within the Frankfurt Book Fair. With THE ARTS+ – which will take place for the first time from 19 to 23 October – the Frankfurt Book Fair is breaking new ground.

With a one-day conference (on 19 October 2016) and a five-day fair (Hall 4.1), THE ARTS+ offers an ideal place to discuss digitisation as an opportunity and to get new business models in the culture and creative industry off the ground. Using artificial intelligence for content development, 3D printing in the fields of architecture and fashion, virtual reality environments in museums and for urban planning, and digital marketplaces for creative products are just a few examples of how new technologies can be integrated into the cultural sector. But how can stakeholders benefit from this? These questions will be debated at THE ARTS+. For more, visit www.theartsplus.com.

More trade visitors

Just weeks before the start of the Frankfurt Book Fair, it looks as though the number of exhibitors will be roughly the same as last year, while a slightly higher number of trade visitors are expected.

The Frankfurt Book Fair shows strong growth in the field of children’s and young adult books, one of the best-performing segments in the industry worldwide. A new area for international children’s and young adult publishers in Halls 5.1 and 6.1 will bring together 300 publishers – including many first-time exhibitors. Yet children’s and young adult books aren’t the only booming area for rights and licensing – 460 tables have been sold in the Literary Agents & Scouts Centre (LitAg), and 692 agents from 31 countries will represent their authors here.

For fans and supporters of the Frankfurt Book Fair, ‘Friends of the Frankfurt Book Fair’ has been established this year. Founding members include not just representatives of the city of Frankfurt am Main, but also businesses such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Fraport AG, Messe Frankfurt and Tourismus+Congress GmbH Frankfurt am Main, as well as associations such as DEHOGA Hessen and the Frankfurt Hotel Alliance.

In addition, the idea of ‘Friends’ is also aimed at visitors to the Book Fair and will allow, for the first time, 1,000 of them (along with their plus-ones) to attend the trade-visitor days from 19 to 21 October 2016.

For more on the Frankfurt Book Fair 2016, visit www.book-fair.com.