Leipzig Book Fair: Stumbling at a Gallop

Astrid Böhmisch, the new director of the Leipzig Book Fair, likes to say that she “jumped up at full gallop.” She only took up her post on January 1st, when the mass, which begins on Wednesday and runs until Sunday, was already pretty much organized. The 49-year-old worked in the film business for a long time and then became head of marketing at Piper and then manager at Bookwire, a company for “digital solutions” in the book business.

Unlike the music industry, digitalization has not yet shaken the book market. Or do you know someone who only reads books as e-books? You rarely see these users on the subway, only now and then on the ICE and mostly they are well-off people from the 50 plus generation – definitely not the famous youth. It looks like she was lost “in the full gallop” of the industry. Which is suspiciously true: Why do you see so few children reading “Mickey Mouse” or “Bravo”? These used to be the classic media, before young people started staring at smartphones.

Who or what the fair has definitely lost is “The Stage of the Left Publishers”. It was launched at a “full gallop” by the Leipzig Trade Fair itself. Since 2012, it had provided “socially committed authors” with a four by four exhibition space that was “curated on a voluntary basis” – that is, small, financially weak publishers had the opportunity to present their books free of charge and organize discussions. This was popular and often led to productive presentations, around 40 to 50 times per trade fair.

This is over this year, the trade fair apparently no longer wants to afford it. A letter that the publishers Karl Dietz, Argument, Büchner and VSA wrote in December to Böhmisch as the designated new boss remained unanswered. When asked, the trade fair told the publishers that they would be welcome to rent the space, but they could not afford it. Is this an implicit political signal for the future from Saxony? In a federal state where the AfD is polling at 30 percent and the SPD and the Left have to worry about returning to the state parliament.

At least this administrative refusal is contrary to the cultural industry funding that the federal government has been practicing since 2019 by awarding the German Publishing Prize to small publishers that are both economically precarious and culturally valuable. And also across from the hurrah-we-are-back cheering with which the trade fair has been celebrating its comeback after the Corona crisis since last year. Because unlike its competitor in Frankfurt am Main, it was canceled three times in a row (in 2022 there were the small left-wing and alternative publishers plus three or four large ones, which, as a replacement and independently, organized a “pop-up fair” in Leipzig-Connewitz). When it reopened in 2023, there were 2,082 exhibitors, compared to around 2,500 exhibitors before the 2019 pandemic. The number of visitors also fell slightly: 274,000 visitors (including “Leipzig reads”) were counted in 2023, 12,000 fewer than in 2019. Böhmisch expects that there will be more again this year, and there will also be a few more exhibitors again.

What she likes about a trade fair is, to put it scientifically, the principle of serendipity, Böhmisch revealed to the “Börsenblatt” in an interview: What this means is “stumbling across something that you weren’t looking for. I think it’s a great concept.” Stumbling about walking, or rather jostling your way through five exhibition halls can be quite surprising. But what is usually more interesting are the “Leipzig reads” events, which are spread across the entire city: 2,500 at 300 locations.

The nd is presenting a reading by Lydia Meyer from her book on Thursday at linXXnet /Interim “The future is not binary” and on Friday “The End of the Romantic Dictate” by Andrea Newerla. On Saturday there will be a “stage for left-wing publishers” in the House of Democracy for one day. Among other things, Ralf Ruckus presents his new book: “The communist path to capitalism”. Many people dreamed of this. On closer inspection, what is it about? Ah, China since 1949. You could have guessed.

Thu, March 21st linXXnet/Interim, Demmeringsstraße 32, 8 p.m.: Lydia Meyer; Fri., March 22, linXXnet/Interim, Andrea Newerla; Sat, March 23rd House of Democracy, Bernhard-Göring-Straße 152, from 2 p.m. readings by Margareta Steinrücke, Jürgen Göpfert, Peter Wahl, Ralf Ruckus and others