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It’s all fun and music on Frankfurt’s final day
The force awakens: A visitor poses with a stormtrooper and a Jedi master from the Star Wars franchise at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany
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span class="inline inline-center">The force awakens: A visitor poses with a stormtrooper and a Jedi master from the Star Wars franchise at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany.(JP/Stevie Emilia)
The Frankfurt Book Fair transformed into a magical realm over the weekend as book fans showed up clad in the colorful costumes of their favorite characters, from Harry Potter to Obi Wan Kanobi and the Mad Hatter.
The world’s oldest and largest fair, which for the first few days focused more on the book trade, opened up its doors to the public on Saturday and Sunday, its final day.
“There are plenty of events on Saturday and Sunday for the public every year at the fair,” said Thomas Nung Atasana, Indonesia’s National Book Committee literary promotion executive for international rights licensing.
At Indonesia’s 17,000 Islands of Imagination tent, crowds stayed tuned to music performances put forward by the Cakravala Mandala Dvipantara music project, created by the Jendela Ide cultural institution based in Bandung to promote Indonesian visual and performing arts.
The project brought together a talented group of musicians who created seven new compositions, together themed Musical of the Islands, which premiered at the fair.
The compositions included “Jali-Jali: A New Wave of Keroncong”, “The Sound of Poetry” and on the fair’s final day on Sunday, “The Raag of Javadwipa”, which blends Indonesia’s indigenous musical styles with modern music.
The group’s vocalist, Safina Tiara Nadisa, said they had around a month of extensive practice before leaving for the fair.
“The audience’s enthusiasm is great. As soon they heard our music they would come and stay on. Hopefully this is a sign that our promotion here has been a success,” said Safina, who is also a lead vocalist from the Sono Seni Ensemble ethnic-contemporary music group.
One of the performed songs on Sunday was “Amba”, which happens to be the title of author Laksmi Pamuntjak’s award-winning novel that has been translated into English as The Question of Red and German as Alle Farben Rot.
On Saturday evening, Laksmi received the LiBeraturpreis, a German literary prize awarded exclusively to women from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Arab world.
Laksmi, who was announced as the winner midway through this year, won the award for the novel, an elaborate story of love and politics, which transports the reader into a country whose wounds are still raw from a period of bloody conflict. The German translation of her book is now in its second printing.
“I feel flattered for getting the award,” she said in Frankfurt.
Laksmi, who splits her time between Berlin and Jakarta, is currently participating in a writer’s residency program in New York until November.
She feels a bit conflicted for getting this award as a “female” writer, believing as she does that there is no need for such labels.
“I mean, a writer should be just a writer. No need for labels like ‘Indonesian writer’ or ‘female writer’ as such. Just writer,” she says.
“But I am honored to receive the award because female writers do need platforms to shine.”
The committee’s chairperson Laura Prinsloo said the Indonesian delegation to this year’s fair marked another success with 72 book rights sold. Twenty of the deals were signed on the spot. “Our continuous presence at Frankfurt is important to make our books and writers recognized in the literary world,” she said.
