MediaWeek (Vol 4, No 41): Frankfurt 2011, Indian Authors, Digital Rights,

Frankfurt has always been my favorite of the trade shows I've visited.  There's such a variety of people, customers and potential business partners that its unlike any other book show.

It is a gloomy day today and rain is forecast for tomorrow but the threat of industrial action may be less imminent since the government has become directly involved in getting the parties to negotiate. 

A delegation from India is presenting a collection of indigenous Indian works for translation as reported by India's Daily News and Analysis:

In a first showcase of Indian indigenous writing, a literary panorama featuring works by over 30 language writers will be on display at the Frankfurt Book Fair in a pilot exhibition for readers and publishers from Europe, the US and other countries.

The literary panorama, initiated by the union culture ministry under the 'ILA: Indian Literature Abroad' project, will be held Oct 12-16.

The project aims to carry the diversity of contemporary regional Indian literature from the grassroots to the world through source translation, which involves creation of original work directly to foreign languages in an attempt to remove dependence on English translation, a top ILA official said.

Initially, the focus of translation is on six UNESCO languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

“The project requires patience and nurturing. It is (in the) long term. We want to understand the kind of Indian language books the international market likes and the market dynamics. We are looking at source language translations - like from Tamil to French," writer Namita Gokhale, the member secretary of Indian Literature Abroad project, told IANS.

"Translating a regional literary work first into English and then into a foreign language results in loss of textual matter,” she said.

“Different cultures appreciate different kind of literature,” she added.

Gokhale heads the delegation carrying the Indian literary showcase to Frankfurt Tuesday.

A discussion, 'Romancing the Languages: Indian Literature's Journeys' will debate on the future of Indian regional language writing and its global positioning Oct 13.

The Bookseller doesn't expect the slow global economy to impact the US business at Frankfurt (Bookseller):

Meanwhile, organisers are expecting 7,500 exhibitors at the fair, as the halls reach capacity. FBF spokesperson Katja Boehne said there will be 761 exhibitors from the UK and 604 from the US, with between 280,000 to 290,000 visitors set to come through the doors—of which around 150,000 will be trade visitors. She said: "We will see at this book fair what publishers have made of the digital options. There will be lots of enhanced e-books and multimedia projects, some of which we don't have a name for. There will be a large dollop of creativity and new ideas."

Boehne added that the numbers of exhibitors and visitors was "more or less" the same as last year, as the fair has "come to the end of capacity; there is no space left for extra exhibitors".

In Publishers' Weekly Rachel Deahl suggests this years Frankfurt will be about digital rights just like last year and the year before and she concludes, (PW):

And then there’s the growing concern and confusion over e-books and the open market. Under the reigning territorial model, the open market right allows publishers to sell English-language books in European countries outside the U.K. Whether the open market can, or should, be preserved in the digital world is a recurring question. A recent court ruling, outside the book world, may also be a topic of conversation in Frankfurt. In Football Association Premier League Ltd. et al. v. QC Leisure et al., an E.U. court just ruled that a British pub owner was not legally allowed to use a decoder to air Greek soccer games in her bar; without the decoder she would have had to pay a licensing fee to Sky Sport. The ruling had to do with the fact that Sky Sport had negotiated an exclusive licensing fee with the Premier League to air its games in the U.K., and, although the decoders are legal, they cannot be used to show the games to a group. Attorney C.E. Petit, who blogs about publishing and the law at Scrivener’s Error, picked up on the case and noted that the judgment might have implications in the book world. Since Europe is now under a more unified copyright law, with the establishment of the E.U., there could be a case about multiple English-language editions being sold in Europe. In other words, there could now be legal ground for stamping out the open market in publishing.

A not well known Irish author Flann O'Brien gets and appreciation from More Intelligent Life:

Despite the pseudonym, everyone in Dublin’s incestuous literary circles knew him. When he started openly mocking the civil service and expressing political opinions—a serious transgression for an employee of the state—he was invited to retire at age 42, in 1953. His pension, together with the slender income from his writing, might have let him succeed as a novelist. But O’Nolan was better at self-sabotage than self-promotion, and he died at 54 of cancer and alcoholism. He still left behind five novels, three of uneven quality and two, “At Swim-Two-Birds” and “The Third Policeman”, that are among the greatest accomplishments in English-language fiction.

He finished “At Swim-Two-Birds” when he was 28 and sent it off to Longmans, a London publisher, where by a rare stroke of good luck Graham Greene was reader. “I read it with continual excitement, amusement and the kind of glee one experiences when people smash china on the stage,” recalled Greene, who urged publication. From Paris, James Joyce, in a blurb written to help promote the book, pronounced its author “a real writer, with the true comic spirit.” O’Nolan was cautiously optimistic. But the cosmic balance was soon restored. War broke out and in 1940 the Luftwaffe destroyed the London warehouse in which the entire print run of the novel was stored; fewer than 250 had been sold. Then in 1941 Joyce, who had promised to help with publicity, suddenly died, along with O’Nolan’s hopes for the book. “[I]t must be a flop,” he wrote, wallowing in gloom. “I guess it is a bum book anyhow.”

From the twitter this week:

The adventures of Tintin – and CGI http://gu.com/p/32etq/tw

Armour to stand down as Reed finance chief - FT.com - Mediahttp://on.ft.com/nHFHnJ

Stars Will Read Amazon Unit's New Audio Book Series:http://nyti.ms/nWdh4E