Bertrand Morisset, Paris Book Fair Salon du livre de Paris General Commissioner and the author of the idea to invite both countries and individual cities as honorary guests to attend the event, visited Wroclaw last week. The fair has hosted a number of major cities to date, including Moscow, Barcelona and Shanghai. Wroclaw and Kraków will join this exquisite company this year, from 19-23 March.
The Paris BooK Fair Commissioner Bertrand Morisset has visited Wroclaw / phot. Grzegorz Maryniec
Two cities – two Poland's literary capitals
"Our French partners have invited two cities which, in their opinion, best represent our literary world," emphasises Irek Grin, ECC 2016 Literary Curator. "This is convenient because, with due respect to our capital city, the majority of Poland's literary activity goes on in Wroclaw and Kraków," points out Irek Grin. "United we stand," adds the Paris Book Fair Commissioner Bertrand Morisset. The French party likes the idea of the cities united to promote culture and creative minds. For this reason, Wroclaw and Kraków will present their literary offer at one stand located in the centre of the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles pavilion.
Polish action plan
The offer must be as wide as possible. "The stand is going to present a variety of fields, including comic book, fiction, picture albums and children's books," enumerates Bertrand Morisset. And he hastens to add that books will be available both in French and in Polish. "As many as 40% of the books sold by each city are in the original," says the Fair Commissioner. He also forewarns the authors that they will have little to no time to visit the Louvre or the Eiffel Tower. "Their rosters will be filled with Q&As with their readers and interviews with French journalists," announces the Commissioner. All these initiatives have been taken with a view to selling as many books as possible and securing their forthcoming translations into French, since the French-speaking market, together with the English and the Spanish markets, proves to be one of the largest in Europe.
In Barcelona's footsteps
Irek Grin makes it clear that Wroclaw and Kraków are following in the footsteps of Barcelona, one of the former honorary guests to the Salon du Livre de Paris. "If cultures as strong as that of Spain have benefited commercially, a similar thing may also happen to ours," he says. "We now know that several Polish authors will make their débuts in France. The Paris fair is more than instrumental in this," says the ECC 2016 Curator. Krzysztof Varga will be one of the new names in the French publishing market. "The most important thing for us is that we are able to achieve our goals even before the project's kick-off," he says.
Polish literary stars at the Salon du Livre de Paris
French readers will be offered to read and speak to a number of Polish authors at this year's Salon du Livre de Paris. As many as twenty-one authors are expected to attend the Paris event. Those who are closely connected to Wroclaw include: Lidia Amejko, Joanna Bator, Norman Davies, Ludwik Flaszen, Urszula Kozioł, Marek Krajewski and Olga Tokarczuk. Other literary household names will also join the party: Marek Bieńczyk, Artur Domosławski, Ryszard Krynicki, Ewa Lipska, Zygmunt Miłoszewski, Grzegorz Rosiński, Mariusz Szczygieł, Wojciech Tochman and Krzysztof Varga.
"Polish literature is still underrepresented in French," admits Bertrand Morisset. "Poland has been present at the Salon du Livre de Paris for many years, and you are now having a chance to increase the number of translations into French," says the Commissioner and adds that the number of translations and the interest from French readers grow rapidly following the event. "Our goal is to present the authors already translated into French and to cooperate with our French partners to develop a programme to organise meetings between Polish and French publishers," explains Agnieszka Rasińska-Bóbr from the Book Institute (Instytut Książki, one of the Polish presentation organisers, working together with the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego), ECC 2016 Office and Kraków Festival Office (Krakowskie Biuro Festiwalowe).
Salon du Livre de Paris - obliged by tradition
The fair has been organised since 1981, and although it is not as enormous as that of Frankfurt’s, the number of visitors and the exhibition space of more than 55 thousand square metres prove to be impressive. This former translates into 200 thousand people, including 30 thousand people from the publishing industry. "We're providing the stage for the market, since books are not only a pleasure to read but also a commodity, and the industry is represented by French professionals as well as publishers from abroad," says Bertrand Morisset. As many as 52 foreign exhibitors are expected to attend this year's Salon du Livre de Paris. Wroclaw and Kraków will do their best to showcase Poland's literary legacy.
