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
