Although mainly fiction was represented at the Thirteenth Non/Fiction Book Fair in the Central House of Artist (CHA), the name of it did not discredit the main idea behind this spectacular, salient and multi-faceted event.
About 300 participants – including publishing houses, book retail chains, literary associations and cultural funds – represented philosophical, educational and popular science literature at CHA – both fiction and non-fiction.
One of the most notable events that fit quite fortunately into the Non/Fiction framework was the Festival of Global Ideas from the Vokrug Sveta magazine that turned 150 a short time ago. Among the festival’s speakers were such high-profile Americans as programmer Richard Stallman, physicist Brian Green, editor of The New Yorker David Remnick, who presented his new book The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama. Europe was mostly represented by Frenchmen in Moscow – a roundtable was organized with traveling writers Nicolas Fragues, Olivier Bleys and Christian Jordis. In the evening Western authors dispersed among Russian publishers to buy Russian books, with a pleasant surprise waiting for them outdoors: near the Vokrug Sveta logo cut out of ice they found shot glasses also made of ice and filled with Russian vodka. The treat enraptured the French more than anybody else. They “warmed themselves” so well that a body guard seemed nervous, fearing that foreign guests might drink all vodka and eat all the dried fish, and he announced the bar temporarily closed.
Despite the growing popularity of e-books across the world and in Russia, Non/Fiction saw the record number of visitors – more than 34,000. Paper books sold like hotcakes. The AST publisher reported the unheard-of daily earning: 780,000 rubles. Special space was dedicated to an exhibition: the sale of vinyl records and limited-edition books and postcards that have visual rather than informative value.
Apart from trade, a huge number of literary meetings, presentations, children’s lectures and master classes were held at the fair. Everything was organized on such a noble scale and in such a charismatic atmosphere of creativity and freedom that there was a temptation to pitch a tent at CHA to enjoy the faerie show during all five days. I occasionally came across my old friends in the crowd, had coffee with a university professor who was interested in diets, was amazed to listen to a part of the lecture for teenagers about assimilation of immigrant children, and surely purchased a lot of ‘intelligible’ gifts.
The fair somewhat reminded me of New York in its spirit: very many different faces, each speaking his or her own language. The only difference was stands in place of neighborhoods: Czech, Hungarian, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, French… The last book by Umberto Eco presented at the AST stand by translator Elena Kostyukovich was snatched up no time at all and many visitors were surprised to encounter a book ‘deficit’ as back in the good old times of their childhood.
On the last day, December 4, a long line of people was leading to the stand of the Vremya (“Time”) Publishing House. All of them wanted the iconic writer Junna Moritz to sign their copies of her books. The queue was moving slowly because the adorable poetess took her time as she signed the books and talked unhurriedly with her delighted readers.
Just 10 meters from her, in a glass cube called Zone #1, Alexander Vasilyev was lecturing on the reformer of women’s clothing Paul Poiret. Meanwhile Garry Kasparov was feeding the audience intellectually in the DNA Hall. Valery Popov and Ivan Akhmetyev, presenting the Samokat publishing house, were plunging the audience into poetic reality, far from today’s passions, while the Eshkol project presented the Tomorrow Begins Today action devoted to the predictions and expectations of the future.
I wished I could be present in several places at once but suddenly was attracted by the stand of the ACT Corpus publisher where a meeting with Viktoria Platova took place. To the question about switching from detective stories to some other genre, the writer sadly smiled: “This is next to impossible, for the readership identify me with the detective story for many years running.” Mikhail Elizarov who spoke soon after Ms Platova promoted a polar opposite approach. Commenting on Buratini. Nazism Has Passed (his latest book), he reasoned that “the notion of Fascism can easily apply to everything – to family duties, for example.” And this is how he responded to the criticism of his books: “I do not write anything anymore. Now I am a musician composing songs and singing them. Books are no longer relevant. It’s necessary to look for something paradoxical and innovative like the War art group, which I hold in the highest esteem.”
Mikhail was replaced at the stand by his former snob-community colleague, London-based international banker, columnist and writer Elena Kotova, who recounted her new novel Easy where she described the life of the business elite to which she herself belongs. Elena assured the audience that “EU will never lose control over the economic situation – they treasure their Euro too much to lose it.”
The fair gave a chance to embrace the boundless in a few hours: visit several creative realities, buy books about everything in the world, get involved in discussions, and even rub shoulders with some popular authors.
Anna Genova
