From April 5 to 7, the London Books Fair 2022 held a physical offline exhibition at the Olympia Exhibition Centre in London, England, which is also the first physical offline exhibition held at the London Book Fair since 2019, providing valuable spiritual "reinforcements" to global readers who have been "besieged" by the new crown epidemic for several years.
As one of the most active publishing industry exhibitions in the global copyright trade, and the most influential book exhibition in English-speaking countries, China has always attached importance to the London Book Fair as a platform for displaying and promoting books to the world. 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of ambassadorial diplomatic relations between China and the UK, and despite the recurrence of the epidemic, more than 60 Chinese publishing units have gone to London to participate in the exhibition, with the help of a 60-square-meter China Publishing Joint Booth to showcase Chinese books to participants.
The unified theme of the joint booth of China Publishing at this year's book fair is "ReadingChina", a total of about 500 kinds of publications with Chinese copyright are exhibited in total, and actively carry out online book display, copyright negotiation and key book promotion activities, and strive to combine offline and online to introduce and promote China to book industry and ordinary readers in the English-speaking area, helping them understand the relatively unfamiliar Chinese culture, as well as what has happened and is happening in China.
This year's book fair has launched a large number of books and works introducing the political philosophy, international and social values of Chinese leaders, and highlighted the theme books celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, while focusing on the representative works reflecting the latest achievements in contemporary China's economic and social development, academic research and literary creation. In addition to the theme books, it also focuses on social sciences, traditional culture, literature, children's books and other works, trying to open a door and window for international peers and overseas readers to understand China.
In addition to the physical offline exhibition, the theme page of the official website of the London Book Fair "Reading China" and the website of the Chinese Embassy in the UK also display and promote Chinese books simultaneously, so as to facilitate the continuous promotion of Chinese high-quality books to go abroad and enter overseas markets throughout the day.
Although the Chinese exhibitors made great efforts at the London Book Fair 2022 to bring the "voice of China" to this important international English book platform, frankly speaking, this "voice of China" was a little smaller after all, although there were some surprising "Chinese elements" that attracted the attention of visitors and peers at the 3-day exhibition, such as Dandelion Children's Bookstore. Chinese edition) and Otter-Barry Books (English edition) and the children's picture book "Shu Lin's Grandpa", which was shortlisted for this year's Kate Greenaway Medal, and Martin, a prominent scholar at the British Academy of Social Sciences Albrow's new book, China and the Shared Human Future: Exploring Common Values and Goals, has attracted a lot of attention and some repercussions both inside and outside the exhibition, but overall, this surprise is still a little less, which is from the local media's criticism of "Chinese elements" during this year's book fair. The rarity (not even negative coverage) is evident.
In this regard, some friends who went to the scene of this year's book fair said that they had something to say.
A friend said that although the use of the book fair platform to introduce and promote China is the main purpose of the exhibition, it is also crucial to explain and promote Chinese ideas and values overseas, but the means and ways should be more "soft", "after all, even the country's political books are now lack of interest, the main political figures should pay attention to the balance between ideology and readability, the London Book Fair is still a commercial book fair in the end, is a platform for commercial book copyright transactions, it is not advisable to pay attention to 'good selling', but books sent here are still in the final analysis. Send it for sale', this industry friend hopes to exhibit Chinese elements of the book "more colorful, softer narrative."
Another friend recalled China's participation in the London Book Fair in 2012. At that book fair, the Exhibition Hall of The Chinese Guest of Honor covered an area of 2019 square meters, setting a record in the history of the London Book Fair, and held the "China Book Global Publishing Festival" and the Dialogue between Chinese and British Writers and Scholars. At that time, the grand situation was unprecedented, the bright five-star red flag fluttered in front of the exhibition hall, and the exhibition hall used red, gray, blue, white and yellow to distinguish 5 units, symbolizing the concept of "five elements" of gold, wood, water, fire and earth, which is important in Chinese cultural elements, Chinese and foreign scholars and cultural celebrities have carried out colorful exchanges in the fields of publishing, culture, film and other fields, including fierce but interesting debates and collisions of views, the "penetrating power" of this "soft output", many participants still talk about it. The friend said that the premise of "reading China" is to make readers interested in "reading China", and they must first be attracted to "look" before they have the opportunity to "see" something. "In this sense, overseas platforms like the London Book Fair need more lively 'Chinese style' books like 'Shu Lin's Grandfather', because this is a China that overseas readers and peers like, can and are willing to 'read' and easy to 'read'."