Book Fair Excursion

In the form of art installations, Spain has shown visitors the diversity of cultures and languages that make up its identity. New technologies were also used. In a sea of words, literary quotations, editorial references and definitions, the reality of Spain's linguistic diversity was presented to the public. Machines produced Braille or handwriting, or reflected with colors the sentences that visitors spoke into a microphone in different languages. Translation in the truest sense of the word. "Creatividad Desbordante", in German "Spraying Creativity", could be experienced everywhere.

The following publishing houses were visited: Agullo publishing house, which in just a few years has gained a firm place in the field of crime novels. Jeanne Guyon from Verticales publishing house (Gallimard) explained to us the publishing line and presented the different book profiles (marginal novels, imaginary archives, collections of writing on the walls...). We talked at length about the meticulous text work in intensive dialogue with the author: some manuscripts are rewritten for almost two years! Barbara-Sophia Voglmaier introduced us to the peculiarities of her profession, the qualities needed to arouse interest in a book or to make it stand out in a bookshop: Here we learned a lot about the concrete aspects of selling books. The publishing groups Sial Pigmalión and Web del Album from Spain and Ediciones del Lirio from Mexico offered interesting discussions and showed interest in cooperating with the University of Kassel.

The challenge of the largest book fair in the world is its size. Hardly manageable in a single day: Panel discussions, readings, interviews, and always new publishers to discover. The semester could not have started better