Cape Town Book Fair

Notice from the CTBF:

At the Cape Town Book Fair, we want to provide exhibitors with tools to make better business connections – and make libraries and institutional buyers even more aware of the titles on offer.

In order to achieve this we have created a new tool: The Book Titles list. Once you register with us as an exhibitor you can register your titles in the list on our website – with author, synopsis and many more information fields for fleshing your titles out. All titles published in 2008 or later, and that will be on exhibition at your stand, can be registered – and we will actively promote the list to all libraries as well as other institutions in South Africa and beyond.

• Click here to register – deadline is 28 Feb!

The ANC’s struggle history has informed their politics after 1994 said Dr Peter Kagwanja during a panel discussion at the Cape Town Book Fair on Reviewing the State of the Nation: 15 years into the South African democracy

According to Kagwanja, Thabo Mbeki’s centralising policies where a result of stringent control in exile. Blurring between state and government is in part due to the fact that the ANC has history as a revolutionary party and is now suddenly faced with pluralist democracy.

Quote of the hour: “Pholokwane was a watershed moment”
-Dr Peter Kagwanja

John van de Ruit brings us Spud – Learning to Fly, the third instalment of the incredibly successful series of novels that started with Spud. Feeling worn out and somewhat drained of his creative spirit, van de Ruit spent two months backpacking around South East Asia, and while exploring the streets, markets and quirks of Hanoi, Vietnam, found his inspiration again. The result? One year later: here he is, reading to happy fans from Spud – Learning to Fly. Catch him signing books at the Penguin Books Stand at 12 noon today.

Quote of the hour: “I’ve just had the first launch of Spud – Learning to Fly. My publishers told me 2000 people attended, and I signed 1800 books… So the hand’s been hanging at a funny angle ever since.”
-John van de Ruit

As part of their Cape Town Book Fair programme, Jacana handed out ten free t-shirts – and free books (pretty good ones too) – to the first ten people who responded to their SMS. So if you did, get down to the Exit doors and pick up your t-shirt and your book!

Quote of the hour: “”Sorry sir, I’m not security!”"
-Jacana T-Shirt Lady

Michelle Matthews writes up the possibilities for this years CTBF on BookBrunch.co.uk:

“Education for the future” is the theme of Cape Town ‘09, which opens on Saturday (13 June) and at which 25 countries will exhibit. It will host “a rigorous discourse into South Africa that is strongly in support of the policy of freedom of expression” and attract “a critical and vocal literary audience, committed to healthy debate”, predicts Director Vanessa Badroodien. For BookBrunch, in association with the Publishers Association, Michelle Matthews assesses the health of the South African book market

Through the blustery gray of the Cape of Storms’ winter, a glow of excitement starts to shine in bookish circles. It’s mid-June, mid-winter and time to get out from in front of the heater and brave the crowded halls of the Cape Town Convention Centre for one of the City’s most popular shows of the year – the Cape Town Book Fair.

Nearly 60, 000 people streamed (and damply steamed) through the Fair in 2008 – not many of them international publishers. The Cape Town Book Fair, now in its fourth year, has always been the public’s fair, despite attempts to woo business people from round the world with the promise of undiscovered talent sweetened with a Winelands tour. Most of South Africa’s publishing is in English, many of our publishers have established relationships with UK publishers, and most of the business can be done at Frankfurt or in London.

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PRESS RELEASE

Information for Change workshops bring together individuals and organisations involved in generating, publishing, and using information for development from the Western Cape, the wider South Africa, the region, and the rest of Africa.

The workshops are intended for NGO managers, resource centre organisers, librarians, academics, students, and representatives from research organisations, advocacy organisations, community development organisations and networks. The workshops offer the opportunity to learn from colleagues, share experiences and network.

The HSRC Press is co-hosting the 2009 workshop together with CODESRIA, the IDRC, Oxfam GB and The World Bank.

Programme
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Listen to 567 Cape Talk all this week for spotlight features on the Cape Town Book Fair. As it says on the Cape Talk spotlight page:

Books come alive in Cape Town as authors and publishers converge on the CTICC to engage book lovers at the annual Cape Town Book Fair from the 13th to the 16th June.

It’s a feast for all book lovers with more than 300 launches and readings over the four
days.

Politics or poetry, fiction or fact, there’s something for all readers.

PRESS RELEASE

Focus on Africana and Collectible Children’s Authors

For its first year at the Cape Town Book Fair (CTBF), AIDS NGO Wola Nani will have a stand selling collectible books and popular contemporary reads.

“For our inaugural year as a guest of the CTBF, Wola Nani will focus on items of special interest to collectors of Africana and children’s books” says the charity’s chairman Marcus Brewster. “Africana lovers will find choice first editions of everything from Andre Brink to Lawrence van der Post”. Other collectible fiction stocked will include Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing, J M Coetzee, and Alan Paton as well as stalwarts like T V Bulpin and Lawrence Green.

Those looking to find something memorable for Dad on Father’s Day in June or those men wanting to recapture their lost youth will find a treasure trove of vintage boy’s fiction at the Wola Nani stall. Finds include dust-jacketed hard cover editions of Biggles, The Hardy Boys, Arthur Ransome’s “Swallows and Amazons” books and Richmal Crompton’s “Just William” series. There will also be paperback reading copies of these hard-to-find titles.
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SA publisher pulls off major coup

Could this be the most expensive new book on the planet?

One of the most extraordinary books on the planet will be on view in Cape Town next month.

• The Cape Town Book Fair runs from 13 to 16 June from 13 to 16 June at the Cape Town Convention Centre in association with the Frankfurt Book Fair and the Publishers’ Association of South Africa; click here for the programme

EARTH is a 580-page atlas weighing 35kg in its leather-bound preservation case, and it will be on show, and for sale at the Cape Town Book Fair.

It is a limited edition work of art – a true collector’s item taking publishing and cartography into the stratosphere. More than 100 cartographers, oceanographers and geographers from around the globe have contributed 355 maps.
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The Cape Town Book Fair has broken the 50 000 visitor barrier!

The numbers were up by over 1000 visitors from last year, with the official tally being set at 50 494 – not including children.

From CTBF HQ on the first floor of the CTICC, Vanessa Badroodien said the fact that the fair had topped last year’s record levels showed that it had consolidated its reputation as the number one book event in South Africa. She was pleased that the numbers were stabilising around 50 000 – meaning that the CTBF keeps its status as the Convention Centre’s largest consumer event.

From conversations I’ve had on the floor this final day with publishers and other exhbitors, it’s clear that everyone is pleased by how the fair turned out: traffic was steady and sales figures were high. Much bookish business was done!

From the BOOK SA stand at C11, congratulations to Vanessa and her team.