Fewer visitors to this year’s London Book Fair meant a lost opportunity to promote the range of South African literature, writes Mehita Iqani
The official tagline of the South Africa Market Focus at this year’s London Book Fair (LBF) was “One Nation, Many Voices”. But because of the travel chaos caused by the relentless ash-belching of Eyjafjallajökull (pronounced ‘Ek-is-flippen-gatvol’ according to Sarah Britten in a talk delivered by David Fleminger on her behalf), the tagline might better have been “One Expo, Many Echoes”. An event that is usually experienced as a three-day rights-trading, deal-making fiesta featuring more than 20 000 publishing industry professionals (the who’s who of the global books industry) dwindled to a much more modest gathering of personnel, who enjoyed plenty of shoulder room in the 58 811m2 of Earls Court Exhibition centres one and two and time to talk at leisure.
For all the show-must-go-on bravado of undoubtedly very stressed LBF organisers, who correctly promised that the clouds of volcanic ash would not stop the book fair, it sure did slow down the proceedings. Piles of freebies (such as the scrumptious latest Granta magazine) were left untouched on the outskirts of what one Twitterer (Tom W Thornton) described as a “ghost-town tumble-weed-type experience”.
Any expo of the size of the LBF is meant to be about who and what is present: the masses of brands, products and titles on display, the crowds of editors, authors and publishers who come together to do what they do: talk books. But this LBF had a palpable sense of absence. It was not only the South African literati left stranded by the volcano-induced flight ban, of course, but their absence was keenly felt at a book fair themed to capitalise on South Africa’s international prominence owing to the coming Fifa World Cup. Despite sterling efforts by representatives of the South African literary community who were present, as well as a never-ending online buzz through Book Southern Africa, Facebook and Twitter from those who weren’t able to be, one can’t help feeling that the force majeure resulted in a lost opportunity to promote the exciting breadths and diverse depths of South Africa’s cultural industries to the rest of the world.
This is not to suggest that the adapted programmes and seminars featuring important South African literary figures, including Zola Skweyiya, Njabulo Ndebele, André Brink (who was one of three LBF “Authors of the Day”) and many others, did not succeed in emphasising South Africa’s place on the literary map — they surely did. But there were a number of cancellations of seminars and panels that would have been just brilliant. One about South African literary magazines was to feature representatives of Botsotso Publications, Words Etc, Baobab and Chimurenga magazines and was poised to present a variety of salient perspectives on independent, creative publishers in the South, another was to focus on the power of spoken word as an instrument of activism and social engagement but — alas — both had to be canned.
As Antjie Krog said in her video-taped message to the LBF, she felt sorry not for those whose planes were grounded and trips cancelled, long-prepared presentations and talks undelivered, but for those in London for their loss of the presence of so many brilliantly talented South African writers — in total 47 were meant to attend.
The web videos from the Not The London Book Fair (NTLBF) in Cape Town streamed into the South African Pavilion provided some comfort, but also threw into stark relief how much better it would have been if the writers had been there to speak in the flesh.
The upside of all these physical absences was a tangible sense of cyber-presence through ongoing digital communications, such as the broadcasting of video messages from the NTLBF to the LBF and constant Facebooking and Twittering from LBF delegates back out again. The sudden reliance on digital means of communication was ironic considering the sea-changes in the publishing industry as digital media encroach on traditional paper books.
Despite the presence of a “Digital Zone” featuring gadgets such as the iPad and other e-readers and many seminars addressing e-books, copyright in the digital age, social networking and so on, the LBF delegate could be forgiven, looking around at the mountains of paper and ink on display, for surmising that the digital revolution has hardly dented the surface of the conventional publishing industry. And despite the welcome back-up plan that online technologies provided in keeping the LBF and NTLBF connected, there is also no doubt about the continuing importance of embodied presence in the digital age. There is nothing quite like seeing and hearing an author in the flesh read from his or her work or speak off the cuff about issues on which he or she holds well-formed and fascinating opinions.
The impact of the volcanic ash also brings into stark relief how dependent London, which trades on its status as a global cultural hub, is on the constant inward stream of ideas, people and diverse voices. London is lauded as a global capital of culture and it is the economic and cultural power of events such as the LBF that prove this. The city has always been a place of immigration and transit and enjoys a wealth of ethnic diversity and internationalism. But it is also a city that banks on its pull-factors to attract the best of the cultural best — so as to continually entrench its status as a world leader in creative (and economic) agenda-setting. It is striking how much muscle is lost when a force majeure interrupts the travel plans of the global bourgeoisie. The Bookseller estimates that attendance was down by 30% and reported that some delegates claimed that upwards of 50% of meetings had to be cancelled. There is no doubt that London is only a global city because the world comes to it. When the world can no longer come, does London lose its claims to cultural centrality?
The LBF promises to “rise from the ashes” with a bigger and better 40th anniversary fair next year. Word in the blog- and twit-o-spheres is that this year the LBF’s loss (in terms of deals done and business contacts made) will be the Frankfurt Book Fair’s gain. But the fact that the latter has Argentina as its guest of honour this year is all the more pity for the South African publishing market, which can only rue its lost opportunity — but also congratulate itself on a tenacious and passionate showing despite the volcanic situation.
Mehita Iqani is a South African living in London and the editor of ITCH Magazine (www.itch.co.za)
South Africa’s literati rise from the volcanic ashes
What a coup, I’d thought at the time. In between spells of paying work I’d been trying to film enough interviews with writers to launch the South African edition of the Meet the Author website.
What better chance than the London Book Fair, gathering together four dozen of South Africa’s foremost writers in the same place at the same time. But the Icelandic volcano Eyjaffjallojökull came to rain ash on South African literati’s parade, mine included.
Most of the South African writers, poets, publishers and associated publishing industry luminaries didn’t make it to the fair. But a handful of writers did, Mark Gevisser, Zukiswa Wanner, Deon Meyer and Njabulo Ndebele among them. Writers based abroad, such as Damon Galgut and Beverley Naidoo, joined them.
Their presence made it possible for most of the market focus programme events to proceed, even if organisers had to juggle and replace panellists.
Several events stand out. The first was a session on writing crime in South Africa. Without the scheduled Jonny Steinberg and Angela Makholwa, it pitted Deon Meyer against Gillian Slovo, with the Crime Writers’ Association’s Tom Harper chairing. Meyer defended South Africa’s crime record as no better or worse than that of any similar developing country. And he’d brought along the statistics to back himself up. But what about the particularly violent nature of crime in South Africa, asked Slovo.
Harper attempted to probe the panellists on crime-writing in a society in transition. Was it like any other genre? Meyer felt that one of the attractions in the South African context was the overwhelming desire of his readers to see justice done.
Slovo told the audience that although the events unfolding at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on which her 2000 work Red Dust is based, were intensely personal, as a courtroom drama set in contemporary South Africa it remained a work of fiction. It was an exploration of what happens when justice cannot be done, she said. And although the film version was very different to the book, it nevertheless remained true to the story of its protagonists. “But I’m no longer a crime writer in the sense that Deon [Meyer] is,” Slovo said.
Damon Galgut, Nadia Davids and Henrietta Rose-Innes (substituting for Kopano Matlwa and Maxine Case), were asked by panel chair Aminatta Forna to imagine South Africa in fiction writing in South Africa today. It’s a much freer environment from which to draw inspiration, held Galgut, although writers were not yet free of the country’s past and perhaps would not be so for a long time to come. And as a writer living abroad it was liberating to leave South Africa, both as physical landscape and narrative backdrop, and to begin imagining narratives in new settings.
Rose-Innes took issue with foreign audiences’ expectations, of their obsession with “doom and gloom”. If that was what they wanted, then as a literary construct it would deliver banal literature, unable to reflect writing true to the author’s experience.
Another, more sobering discussion was the reflection by Wanner, Ndebele and Beverley Naidoo on creating the next generation of South African reader. Wanner wished that as many South African politicians as attended jazz festivals would go to book launches. She wanted to make reading the kwaito of the South African cultural experience.
Ndebele bemoaned the form of teacher unionisation that had taken root in South Africa that didn’t appear to value developing a professional ethos — such as getting into class and teaching on time — alongside issues such as wages and working conditions.
An inspiring event running parallel to the fair was the launch at the High Commission of Rivonia triallist Denis Goldberg’s struggle memoir, The Mission: A Life for Freedom in South Africa. South Africa House was packed to the rafters with former Anti-Apartheid Movement veterans, many of them in their 70s.
Goldberg warmly greeted each of the throng queuing to get copies signed, as his publisher, STE’s Ridwaan Vally, beamed modestly. In his remarks to the gathering Goldberg made it clear where he stood on the state of the revolution: It had lost its élan much too early, he said.
Back in Jo’burg I called around to inquire how people had dealt with the disappointment of not being able to travel to London. Perhaps I ought to have reminded them that, in the days before they were due to depart, not a single writer out of the almost four dozen invited to London had bothered to pitch for up for a dinner organised by the British Council at a Melville restaurant. — Marcus Toerien