/ 23 June 2006

Big on books

The fact that kept going round and round the Cape Town Book Fair was this: a total of 10 000 visitors had been expected to attend the fair over its four days but, by mid-afternoon on Saturday, the first day of the fair, it had already had 10 000 people through its doors.

Everyone was thrilled by the success of the event. And they continued to be thrilled, even as it drew to a close on Tuesday and exhibitors who had been busy setting up for days and then working their stalls for a few more days of hectic activity were starting to feel rather exhausted.

Apart from the many stalls colourfully displaying their wares in the Cape Town International Convention Centre, there were launches galore and a continual stream of readings, awards, panel discussions, lectures and colloquia. You could say that by the end those involved were tired, but happy.

The fair, created by the Publishers’ Association of South Africa, in collaboration with the Frankfurt Book Fair, finally fulfilled the idea first mooted by the BookEish! project, which would have seen such a fair or “festival” kick off in Cape Town. BookEish! didn’t come to pass, but continued effort got the fair off the ground a few years later. It is hoped that, the first fair having been such a success, it will become a regular date on the international literary calendar.

It certainly focused a huge amount of attention on books, drawing into its embrace such prestigious events as the Via Afrika/M-Net Literary Awards and the Sunday Times‘s Alan Paton Award and fiction prize. The Noma Awards for Publishing in Africa, the only pan-continental, pan-generic and pan-linguistic award (given by a Japanese publisher), were celebrated the night after the glossy Patons. This was the fourth big night in a row for publishers, authors and other participants. The fair’s launch on the Friday night, with a gala dinner, was presided over by one of the Grand Old Men of South African literature, Lewis Nkosi, who expressed his wonderment at the contrast between this gathering and the fact that, as a youth, he had been barred from libraries because he was black.

International guests included the bestselling Alexander McCall Smith, who had the Patons’ guests in stitches with what appeared to be a spontaneous flow of absurdist humour. Richard E Grant, billed after him, rightly declined to compete — to McCall Smith’s Maria Callas, he said, he was a mere Kylie. (Grant is here to promote The Wah-Wah Diaries, his book about the making of his movie Wah-Wah, opening here on July 14.) Popular historical novelist Philippa Gregory was also in attendance.

But such guests, distinguished though they were, could have got a bit lost among the hosts of local authors launching, reading, discussing, hassling their publishers or just gawping at the displays. I attended a poetry reading by Arthur Attwell, who recently published his first collection, and every seat was taken. At a poetry reading! Edwin Cameron and Adam Levin (later to jointly win the Paton) led a passionate discussion of Aids issues in the Sunday Times‘s area in the middle of the fair. Authors and audiences came and went from the Via Afrika coffee hour, sandwiched between stalls, and a large number of people were turned away from a packed event featuring Antjie Krog and Ivan Vladislavic.

The conference rooms on the first storey, named for South African writers, hosted a stream of talks. You kept hearing publishers and visitors saying things like, “I can’t do the indigenous languages thing — I’m going to the Noma writers in Ingrid Jonker” or “See you at Richard Rive for Martin Bernal” (though he was moved at the last minute to Alex la Guma).

Perennial themes in South African publishing were chewed over once more, such as the dearth of publishing in local languages other than English and Afrikaans, the need to create a broader “culture of reading” and the much-asked question, “Where are the young black writers?” engendered intense debate. Issues with a new frisson of immediacy included plagiarism and copyright.

Everyone talked about “the buzz”, especially on the Saturday and Sunday, when public attendance was at an all-time high — though one publisher did complain that he had to stop some visitors helping themselves to the books, which they thought were free. Others wondered how, in future, to juggle the “consumer” or “trade” aspects of the fair.

For South African publishers, who seldom make millions in profit, it’s not necessarily a wise expenditure of publicity budget to take a stall (and the conference centre’s services weren’t cheap) for the sole purpose of promoting their books, or books in general, to the public. As one publisher pointed out, for the same amount of money he could have taken several full-page ads in the Sunday Times.

As far as “trade” goes, what makes the fair’s model — the Frankfurt Book Fair — such a resounding success in the global publishing industry is the sale of rights. Literary careers and publishing history are made at the flash of a cheque book.

Publishers participating in the fair certainly had their hands full talking to agents and publishers from all sorts of places (Ghana, Tanzania, Romania, the United States), and Malaysia, India, Russia, China, Germany and the Scandinavian countries had a presence at the fair. But the big guns of anglophone publishing, where the really big money is, will in future have to be wooed to Cape Town.

If the fair’s long-term mission is to place South African publishing in the global marketplace, and make us all enthusiastic about books, it is off to a good start. Publishers may still be dizzy from all the excitement, and more than a little exhausted, but you can bet they’re already thinking about next year.