Heads
Up, Frankfurt
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (OCTOBER 2001)
Fortunately,
just a few cancellations have affected this month’s
Frankfurt Book Fair — as publishers rethink travel
plans in the wake of September 11 — leaving most everyone’s
Palm Pilots overbooked in typical fashion with meetings
and soirées. To help liven up those long Buchmesse trudges,
PT’s advance foreign rights team has rounded
up a tip sheet of titles and events we hope may prove
enlightening and diverting.
First off, we’re told Rowohlt has mobilized an
impressive roster of authors — among them Updike,
Auster, Amis, Morrison, Saramago,
and Sontag — to contribute essays for an anthology
of international and American writings responding to
the Sept. 11 events. Rowohlt Publisher Peter Wilfert
said in a statement that the project was suggested by
the house’s long tradition of publishing American authors,
and “the feeling of some of our most prominent writers
that they would be eager for an appropriate and international
forum in which to express their reactions.” Proceeds
will be contributed to a fund organized by Die Zeit,
N-TV, the German Red Cross, Deutsche
Bank, and Rowohlt to benefit victims’ families.
Publishing colleagues may visit Rowohlt’s stand (3.1,
E 111) to receive a free copy.
Meanwhile, Argentine publisher Ediciones de la Flor
lands at the fair with what they’re calling “our absolute
bestseller,” the cartoon compilation This Isn’t All
by the artist known as Quino. This one mixes
political pique and pathos, apparently in a highly visual
language that easily crosses cultures. Flor has also
vowed to bring out his renowned comic strip Mafalda
in English, with samples of the first volumes available
from Daniel Divinsky (5.1, E 921). French publisher
Gallimard will also set down with their big book
of the moment, “an American novel” by Michael Cimino
(cineast of the Oscar-winning The Deer Hunter),
which was just launched in Paris in a French edition.
The author has assigned Gallimard to handle all foreign
rights — including securing American and British publishers.
The new book, Big Jane, is a short, 173-page
work said to be a “road-novel” set in America in 1951.
Rendezvous chez Gallimard (6.1, B 910).
We’re told that Sony’s on the prowl with its
new mass market paperback imprint, tentatively called
Village Books. The imprint will include authors
from around the world in genres ranging from commercial
women’s fiction to mystery and inspiration. And don’t
forget that Dutch publisher Het Spectrum is now
publishing exclusively nonfiction, following its acquisition
of Reed Elsevier’s reference division.
In other news, New York Times writer Andrea
Barnet has been commissioned by German publisher
Ebersbach to chronicle the women in Harlem and
Greenwich Village in the twenties, delving into the
likes of Djuna Barnes and Edna St. Vincent
Millay. English-language rights to the title, Crazy
New York, will be available at the fair (4.1, F
132).
Hellenic
Happenings
As
this year’s official guest of honor, of course, Greece
takes pride of place, not least in the realm of parties.
Taking the lead on that front, Patakis Publishers
rolls out a cocktail date for Maira Papathanassopoulou,
the 34-year-old author of two bestselling novels, Judas’
Wonderful Kiss (sold in ten languages so far and
already a bestseller in Holland, where it is published
by Prometheus/Bakker) and Three Men and One
Woman (her second novel, first published in summer
2000, and sold in two languages so far). The party will
take place at the Patakis stand (5.0, B 956) on Thursday,
October 11 at 5:30 pm. The retsina will also be flowing
liberally at the Patakis stand during a party for Greek
authors on Friday the 12th, also at 5:30. This gathering
is expected to bring together a mini-symposium of Greek
literary lights of the moment, including Soti Triantafillou,
whose Subterranean Sky is German publisher Zsolay’s
lead title this fall (the book was originally published
in Greek by Polis Publishers), and Manos Kondoleon,
one of Greece’s winningest children’s authors, whose
novels have been translated into French by Loisirs
(the author is also a nominee for this year’s Hans
Christian Andersen Award). Also keep your eyes peeled
for Vangelis Iliopoulos, whose bestselling series
Little Triangle-Fish has just been sold to Korea.
And in other Greek matters, we note that Livanis
will be on hand with two lead titles: Vassilis Vasilikos’
The Boys of Summer, and Anastasia Kalliontzi’s
Don’t Say Goodbye. You can find Iota Livanis
and an English catalog at 5.0, C 966.
African
Debut, Timm on Tap
South
Africa’s Natal University Press hits the ground
running with Welcome to our Hillbrow, a first
novel by Phaswane Mpe celebrated as “a nifty
and ballsy work of fiction” that’s said to be the first
“post-liberation” novel to come out of South Africa.
Tackling contemporary urban scourges such as AIDS, xenophobia,
and drug culture head-on, the young Mpe has been placed
in the distinguished company of Kerouac and Ginsberg
in his “muted wanderings,” according to publisher Glenn
Cowley (8.0, H 948). As one critic vividly explained,
“The protagonists of Mpe’s tale have migrated directly
from a witch-infested, pre-industrial, remote village
of a forgotten colonial outpost to the Sodom and Gomorrah
that is Hillbrow.” The book was short-listed for the
prestigious Sanlam Literary Fiction award, and
Mpe, 31, teaches African literature in Johannesburg.
A few notes from German publisher Kiepenheuer &
Witsch (4.1, E 102), which happens to be celebrating
its fiftieth anniversary this year. In appropriate high
spirits, it will arrive with a rucksack of titles including
the sought-after work 1979, a novel by the young,
Swiss jet-setter Christian Kracht. This “lively,
cynical text” is set on the cusp of the Iranian revolution,
and follows a German interior designer through the hornet’s
nest of Teheran. The publisher is also doing business
on behalf of Klick, a Russian book launched in
the Kiwi paperback line that was deemed best
Russian book of the year in 2000. Set in postmodern
St. Petersburg, it’s a romp of “wild, controversial,
pulp fiction” about a man and his very pregnant lover,
who on the eve of their marriage takes on a hit-man’s
next project. Perhaps at the top of K&W’s list,
however, is the novel Red, by Uwe Timm.
The book chronicles a jazz critic who falls in love
with a lighting designer during the chaos of 1968, and
explores the society that the soixante-huitards must
somehow redeem. Timm, who has been published in the
US by New Directions, once said of the failed
’68 movements, “We realized that these flowery dreams
— literature changes awareness — wilted away. This means
that precious little can be moved by literature. But
precious little is still sufficient: it should be moved.”
©2001
Publishing Trends
