Salon Du Vivre
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (APRIL 2005)
The word
salon is equally defined as a room, such as a drawing
room, used for receiving and entertaining guests, or
as a periodic gathering of people of social or intellectual
distinction. With this in mind, the perennially chic
Salon du Livre celebrated its 25th
anniversary this year, continuing a very French mélange
of book fair meets leisurely living room. Although the
event has long outgrown its original home at the Grand
Palais, the opening night retained the same bustling
atmosphere of fairs gone by, with guests balancing champagne
flutes and gingerly handling hors-d'oeuvres. The art
in question seemed less that of literature, and more
that of meeting and greeting, with the success of each
publisher's books reflected in the quality of drinks
and petit fours served at their respective stands. The
Veuve Cliquot of Denoel's
booth served as the perfect apéritif for the
first-rate tomes of La Suite Fran çaise by Irène
Némirovsky and A Very Long Engagement
by Sébastien Japrisot, whereas
a run of the mill bottle of Bordeaux mirrored
the less illustrious success of the National
Museums' latest publications. Some booths looked
simply miserable in comparison, armed only with orange
juice, but the always-effervescent Bureau International
de l'Edition Fran çaise (BIEF) threw
a private party with its own bartenders and waiters
to advertise to the world the prosperity of the French
publishing scene.
Never before
had the Salon been open to such a wide variety of foreign
influence, highlighted by the Cosmopolivres
special section, touting 300 publishers with the literature
of over 25 countries. A single look at the schedule
took the visitor on a trip through Africa, Algeria,
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and India, and celebrated
writers like Bukowski and Jules
Verne.
The fair also
paid a special tribute to Russian literature, bringing
in approximately 40 guest authors. By the end, over
18,000 books from the Russian booths were sold, a quarter
in the original language.
A 15% decline
in the number of paying visitors (down to 165,000) was
optimistically attributed to the unseasonably sunny
weather and the large number of free invitations issued,
but balanced by the increase in the number of attending
scholars, which topped 12,000.
PT thanks
Armelle Weisman, a journalist for the French magazine
Topo for contributing to this article
©2005
Publishing Trends
