Germany reportedly celebrated success as the guest of honour at the 25th Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) in Mexico. The Spanish-language book fair was attended by more than 650,000 visitors and 1,935 publishers from 43 countries, including Spain, the US and France.
About 2,500 visitors attended the opening event, which was a discussion between Nobel laureates Herta Müller and Mario Vargas Llosa. All 25 of the German authors were reportedly received with keen interest. These included Monika Maron, Rüdiger Safranski, Wladimir Kaminer, Doris Dörrie, Peter Stamm and Raul Zelik, as well as the illustrators Jutta Bauer, Birte Müller and Reinhard Kleist.
Around 8,500 visitors participated in the 50 literary and trade events, which is said to have done much to raise the profile of German literature in the Latin American book scene. Some 42 separate exhibitors introduced themselves at the German Pavilion.
The exchange of knowledge between the markets was one of the main objectives of the guest of honour presentation. For instance, an informative panel discussion looked at the trend for selling Spanish-language rights directly to Latin American publishers, rather than – as used to be the case – through the publishers' headquarters, which are often based in Spain. Evidence for this trend came in the form of the many rights managers who attended the fair, for example from Ars Edition, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Tessloff and Herder.
Many stakeholders were said to be involved in the success of this, the largest guest of honour appearance to date for Germany in Mexico. The Frankfurt Book Fair, the Goethe Institut, DAAD and other organisations designed their programmes under the general coordination of the German Embassy in Mexico City.
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