I
went back to my room after my 6.30am breakfast -- yes, I’m one of those
disgusting people -- to hang up my clothes (I had checked in only at
12.30am) and returned to the lobby of the Holiday International Hotel at
ten to deal with my emails, read some news from home on the Malaysian
Insider, and wait for the twelve o’clock bus to take us to the Sharjah
Chamber of Commerce for the opening of the professional programme. About
eleven-thirty, I saw a crowd forming at the ground floor and guessed
these were the other participants -- many hanging about chattering and
many others, like me, busy on laptops and mobile devices, many with the
bright white Apple logo. I smiled. I wondered, unkindly, how many of
them were fashion accessories. The professional programme on Tuesday, 15 November was revealing. The event was unusual enough, not to mention fascinating, for me. It was speed-dating on steroids: imagine a hundred and fifty publishing professionals from around the world, buyers and sellers, all confined to a room for six hours (generously watered and fed, no doubt), meeting, matching and making deals, many prearranged or match-made, but several spontaneous. On final count I got six requests for ePub (iOS, I assume), two for printed, one for pdf and one for Mobi editions (for Kindle, I think) of my books. Or, in terms of titles: 13 ePub, five Mobi, two pdf and two printed books.
So, in my totally unscientific survey, amongst publishing professionals, iOS rules.
IQ84
This is one book I had decided I was not going to bother to read. The hype was enough to kill it for me. Then, when I saw the book (from afar) in Frankfurt, I said: there's no way I’m going to waste my time on that huge tome. Then it showed up in the shop, at Silverfish, just before my Sharjah trip. The weight of the book, its cheesy page-design and its oh-so-Japanese Mikado: the pop opera dust jacket (Harvill Secker edition), had me resting my head on my hands with a sigh. I was not a great fan of Murakami, although I am not one of those who think it’s cool to exalt the virtues of his namesake, Ryu, like many, even those who have never read him -- I don’t feel that insecure -- but I did like Kafka on the Shore. I’m not taking this to Sharjah, I reiterated. Everything I want to read is in my iPod Touch.
Still, curiosity, go the better of me and I read the first few pages, if for no reason other than to criticise it. I got hooked. The book travelled with me to the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF), in the cabin, and was my companion in the hotel through my trip.
What can I say? Haruki Murakami is a master storyteller, and 1Q84 is a masterpiece. A love story in the midst of religious fanaticism, and a literary-fraud sideshow. I love it, and it has earned a permanent (and prominent) place on my shelves (although I kept reaching out for my editors pencil behind my ear throughout Book 1 -- but, surprisingly, not in Book 2&3 -- and it has the appearance of a rushed job), and even if the book is heavy enough to kill a cat if you decide to toss it.
The third-world trap
The professional programme was organise to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the SIBF. All countries want to have book fairs; all countries now have book fairs. Trading rights is the new thing. Sharjah’s professional programme was ambitions. While the SIBF was not a humungous affair like Frankfurt, it was targeted and effective with, I suspect, a higher deal rate. Other countries caught in a third-world trap with a ‘can’t do’ attitude, could do worse than pay attention.
Sharjah, obviously, has long term plans for this programme: it was too well planned and organised to be a one-shot-wonder. The boldest move has to be the USD300,000 translation grant in its first year. (Will there be a bigger grant next year? Let’s see.) All deals done during the professional programme on 15 November 2011 are eligible for grants ranging from USD1500 for children’s books and up to USD4000 for general titles, from and to any language. On 17 November, the organisers had already received 135 applications; a total of 500 is expected.
Your move, Malaysian National Book Council.
(The middle income trap is about the pocket, the third-world trap retards the mind.)
