Fair director Juergen Boos said the trade show had to 'make sure we can present many voices,' and said he looked forward to a 'controversial and not always convenient book fair.' -- PHOTO: REUTERS
FRANKFURT - THE Frankfurt Book Fair's 61st edition opens on Tuesday with the welcome mat laid out for guest of honour China, but it was clear the hosts saw freedom of expression more as an opportunity than a threat.
THE fair 'is an unique opportunity for China to present the richness of its culture and its literature,' Mrs Merkel said in the podcast. 'I hope therefore that China makes use of the opportunities that this presents.'
In mid-September, a symposium organised ahead of the trade show sparked controversy when poet Bei Ling and journalist and environmental activist Dai Qing were invited and then 'de-programmed' owing to protests from Beijing.
Gottfried Honnefelder, president of the German publishers and booksellers association, told the opening press conference he hoped 'our colleagues, the authors and publishers in China, will be given the freedoms they need to live their lives and do their work.'
Fair director Juergen Boos said the trade show had to 'make sure we can present many voices,' and said he looked forward to a 'controversial and not always convenient book fair.'
Dissident Chinese poet Bei Ling told another press briefing he and others wanted visitors to the fair to hear not only the 'officials writers voice. 'We have another voice, this underground literature voice, underground poetry,' Mr Bei said at an event sponsored by The International Society for Human Rights.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already said she would not avoid thorny topics in her meetings with Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping, tipped as a possible successor to President Hu Jintao.
'In my talks I will make it clear to Chinese representatives that freedom of opinion is not a threat, but an opportunity,' Mrs Merkel, who angered the Chinese government by meeting the Dalai Lama in 2007, said in her weekend podcast. Mrs Merkel and Mr Xi are to officially open the world's biggest book fair at 5pm (1500 GMT, 11pm Singapore time). -- AFP
