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.”
