Beijing Announces Children's Book Fair; Istanbul Festival; 2018 Fellows

In the ITEF program’s eighth year, 19 professional fellows will meet with players in the Turkish publishing industry. And BIBF is to open its own dedicated children’s book fair in Beijing.

Fellows at the 2017 Istanbul International Literary Festival. Image: Kalem Agency

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Nineteen Fellows Selected

The fellowship program at the Istanbul International Literary Festival (ITEF) has made its selection of fellows for this year’s festival, which runs May 4 through 13.

The festival is also known as the Istanbul Tanpinar Literary Festival, for the poet, essayist, parliamentarian and novelist Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (1901-1962). Both the festival and its fellowship program are organized by the Kalem Literary Agency, led by Nermin Mollaoğlu.

The goal of the festival itself is to raise the visibility of Turkish literature internationally, and to infuse Turkey’s domestic book market with dynamics of the world book industry. The fellowship program was established in 2011 to complement that mission. Since then, the program has hosted 124 professional participants from 34 countries. Most recently, the program drew more than 200 applications from 30 nations.

The 2018 fellows announced are:

Anna Muñoz (Quaderns Crema S.A, Spain)
Anvar Cukoski (Aufbau Verlag, Germany)
Beniamino Ambrosi (Maria B. Campbell Associates, USA)
Carles Masdeu (Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells, Spain)
Carlo Gallucci (Gallucci Editore, Italy)
Carlos Gonzalez (La Cifra Editorial, Mexico)
Catharina Schilder (De Bezige Bij, The Netherlands)
Charlotte Cray (HarperCollins, UK)
Irene Lucas (Grupo Planeta, Spain)
Jennifer Royston (Verlag C.H. Beck, Germany)
Joseph Zigmond (Hachette, UK)
Judith Oriol (Gallimard, France)
Karam Ahmed (Al Kotob Khan Publishing, Egypt)
Madeline Jones (Henry Holt & Company, USA)
Lars Claßen (dtv Verlag, Germany)
Merit Kask (Hunt Publisher, Estonia)
Misia Sert (Institut Ramon Llull, Spain)
Piotr Wawrzenczyk (Book/Lab Literary Agency, Poland)
Sadi Tekelioğlu (Translator, Denmark)
Seid Serdarevic (Fraktura, Croatia)

This year’s group of 19 participants will be taking part in the eighth professional fellowship program, which will run May 2 through 6 and will feature meetings with Turkish publishing industry players and authors.

Beijing To Add Children’s Book Fair in August

At Beijing International Book Fair 2016. Image: BIBF

As Bologna’s International Children’s Book Fair gets underway in Italy, there’s news that Beijing International Children’s Book Fair (BICBF) is to run parallel to the Beijing International Book Fair (BIBF), August 22 to 26.

The main fair will be in its 32nd year in August, and the newly created children’s fair is to feature animation, comics, IP licensing, education and digital publishing, according to media materials, “to create a new type of cross-media professional exhibition.”

This first children’s fair is to comprise 14,100 square meters of space and is expected to welcome exhibitors from China, Japan, South Korea, and France, while also inviting prominent cartoonists from China and other countries.

In a prepared statement, BIBF director Liying Lin is quoted, clarifying that the program will be industry-facing as opposed to a public consumer event.

Liying Lin

“Three years ago,” she says, “we established a children’s hall at BIBF and it proved highly successful. In the same period, IP licensing and cross-media publishing have developed rapidly, especially in children’s books, so we decided to set up a professional exhibition to capitalise on these developments.

“The Beijing International Children’s Book Fair is a professionals-only fair and the only one of its type, providing the industry with what it needs to take advantage of current market trends.”

Materials provided to the news media also reference an integration in the children’s program of film and television in some way, as yet unspecified, and the planned building of “a platform for publishing companies and these new potential business partners.

“The fair will also help publishers expand into new areas through professional forums, seminars and trade matchmaking activities,” according to a statement to the news media.

The Beijing International Book Fair presents itself as “the biggest book trade fair in Asia” and is produced by the China National Publications Import and Export (Group) Corporation.

More from Publishing Perspectives on Turkey’s Istanbul International Literature Festival is here. And more on the Beijing International Book Fair is here.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.