Germany by a staggering thirteen percent and germany is not the worst case so thats not exactly good news as the book world is gathering in frankfurt under a dark sky for its annual literary october first the book that. So lets have a look around that biggest cultural event on earth lets meet authors and publishers from around the world ask them whats on their mind and lets check out some good new rates. But first up with all the. Declining says lets see if the end of the book world is nigh. Are the days of books numbered certainly not at the Frankfurt Book Fair in fact more and more books are being published an ever shorter intervals. Its easy to feel overwhelmed by the choices but there are fewer bookshops and so less advice on what to choose readers are buying books online instead. Its a challenge in terms of visibility but its also an opportunity for Publishing Houses because we stand for quality products that we perfect in terms of content and design before publishing them that gives readers some orientation and guarantees them a certain quality. And quality its first. Swiss Publishing House kind and offers high quality paperbacks for their twenty Year Anniversary c. E. O. Pay to Hard Commission the german english serialized novel forty six novelists contributed five pages each. They were only part of one larger story that shows that the Publishing House and its books have something in common that they belong together. Thats the best thing a Publishing House could hopeful. The truth. Is like a big family which includes the readers at the book fair they can win a night stay in one of the publishers accommodation containers complete with a bedtime story read to them by an author. Writers up close and personal thats popular in frankfurt to the fair boasts numerous readings and book presentations. Events like these are increasingly important a live show for every cookbook. Sophia hoffman is Food Blogging royalty with thousands of followers now shes written her very own cookbook the line between the blogosphere and books is blurring. You can write about timely things you can tap into Current Trends that makes it special with regard to cookbooks i can say that Publishing Houses are interested in this because it means they get a feel for whats fashionable. That way they can see which trends might get picked up in the print sector. The book market is changing audio books for all age groups are being published alongside regular printed editions its a real growth market. Revenue for childrens and young adult books is growing to. The publishers are also under pressure to constantly come up with new ideas. The latest concept is licensing deals with animation giant walt disney. We get film characters and other things that are displayed where our books are on sale. So people will become aware of our books in bookshops or in gas stations or in supermarkets because of certain film characters or film themes on display. We think and we can see from sales figures that this lets us reach new target groups. And. For the fourth year an ebook prize will be awarded at the Frankfurt Book Fair although the ebook hype is dying down what counts is quality the prize honors layout and functionality which is especially important in nonfiction and Childrens Books survived its not enough for a Childrens Book to be animated with things like falling snowflakes it should also encourage reading it should read the text aloud while the corresponding lines are highlighted. New ideas are needed a start up from southern germany has developed a socalled book it has regular book pages with a twist when you touch the text or pictures you hear the respective sound. Was leaving us its a different experience when you touch paper and get an interactive response its unique and novel which makes it a special experience that hasnt existed before. But. While some complain about the demise of books this man is full of optimism. Hes even founded his own Publishing House. My first book focused on the void can i feel a small region in germany thats really worth seeing now Publishing House wanted a book of this kind they didnt fancy the sort of craftsmanship so we decided to publish it ourselves. And the commercial success has proven him right this passionate photographers books are a hit with readers and clients one thing led to another our colleagues came. And now were producing these wonderful books from. The Frankfurt Book Fair is proving at reading hasnt gone out of style. From treasures for people your files to technological gimmicks the Publishing Industry is vibrant and above all ingenious. One of the hot topics among the literary crowd in frankfurt traditionally is awards like the noble prize that went to cuz you ishiguro this year not much debate about this compared to last years prize winner bob dylan. But. The renowned peace prize of the german book trade goes to legendary Canadian WriterMargaret Atwood this year a boy and doomsayer and a writer of dystopia as the new York Magazine describes her and thats a Good Opportunity to reread her canonical master the handmaids tale that should be definitely on your list. You can also follow atwood on twitter shes still very active there at Seventy Eight and youll be in company of one point seven five million at what fans and now were going to meet the author of the german novel of the year the winner of the german book price. Me to go but menace are born and if you enter hes a passionate european who is credited with writing the first novel in which the e. U. Plays the main row its just been named this years winner of the german book prize. For admission to. Naturally im happy about it i think every author wants recognition for their work and its efficacy. And anyone who claims he doesnt need it that it doesnt matter to him is lying of that im sure. His book is entitled to help start of the capital and refers to brussels the control center of the european union. Minister spend four years that conducting research for his novel which shows that youre a kratz can make for wonderful fictional characters. In literary terms how did you go about transforming brussels this you rock recy this abstract power structure into a human story. Is that. This is comes and from the initial approach is quite simple working it all out isnt always so easy but starting is you just have to assume that even though its an abstraction its one made by people. And you can tell a story about anything man made thats why i went to brussels for a closer look to see it concretely because it plays a role in it and has an impact on all our lives. His e. U. Cosmos is manmade and hysterically funny in manassas novel ambitious Civil Servants decide to give the e. U. Commissions battered image a make over its a bold venture. With wit and humor manasseh writes about political power games narrow minded nationalism and about the need for peace in europe. Or a great pro european post nationalist as a writer do you think a book like yours can effect change. Do you know the fable about the sparrow that lies on its back with its legs severe. A cat comes walking by ordinarily it would eat the bird right away. But its intrigued by the way the sparrows lying there and asks animal of the skies why are you lying on the ground with your legs in the air the sparrow says im afraid the sky will fall down the cat says and you think you can prevent that with your fin little legs and the sparrow says its all i can do and you see im the sparrow. Theres at least a glimmer of hope. That captures the mood of the e. U. At present with all its serious undertones and his books attracting attention worldwide Publishing Rights for the capital have already been sold in thirty five countries. What is your Favorite French author is it victor flow. Or is it michelle a while back. Is this years guest of honor at the book fair and is presenting itself in this pavilion and capsule the whole literary spectrum of france and the francophone world. This world has changed and so has French Literature theres a whole generation of Young Authors telling stories of an unsettled nation on the move we match up with four of them. Leal this city in east central france is often under rated once the heart of frances trade today leon and its suburbs are home to Many Companies in the pharmaceutical metal and electrical industries. Sophie devi lives and works here her third novel is about a young unemployed journalist whos struggling to survive. And. I wanted to write a book about contemporary society in difficult Economic Times a theme that hasnt been handled much in literature its something that affects not only the lower classes but also the middle classes especially during this kind of vacuum between the end of someones studies and the time they get a real job. This state of limbo can our last a decade and. Many young people in france are unemployed or underemployed a quarter of University Graduates dont have a steady job a year after finishing their degrees. Sophie deeply knows the feeling shes experienced first hand the battles with authorities the poorly paid jobs and the endless waiting. To do it consumes your life thats whats so hard and the longer it lasts the harder it becomes with me it was over pretty quick but if it goes on for long you dont even want to vote or go out when youre stranded. In her novel the female protagonist is qualified creative and stone broke how can you survive on forty euros for ten long days. So you. Know me not ripping not to sell more you know norma. But working with you know with people through. Her book called the diablo. The bad or when the devil comes out of the bathroom is a piece of biting social commentary yet its also brimming with humor and imagination. I hope people whove been through this will recognize themselves in saying they finally a book thats about me. Our next stop is paris. Its not only france as Political Capital its also its capital of culture and a literary legend to boot. But paris is also still reeling from a string of terrorist attacks in recent years. One of the stars of the young French Literature scene is lady lesley money in twenty sixteen she won the play gone cool frances most prestigious literary award for her novel. The book which comes out next year in english as lullaby starts with a horrific discovery. The baby is dead it took only a few seconds the dr offered assurance that it didnt suffer visit up the limp body found lying amongst the toys in a gray bag. The little girl however was still breathing when they got there. Its the story of a brutal child murder. Is very important electorate all childrens fairy tales are cruel terrible and unjust personally i like fairy tales a lot i wanted to write one but for the big kids for adults. Her fairy tale is about a stressed out bourgeois family who hire a nanny for their children not an african though a french woman with the best of references but there are oblivious to her background and her awful life in one of the bad news of paris and so fate takes its course. Gives readers a real feel for frances Class Society and lets these very different worlds collide. Mixing these two classes in the book automatically results in a kind of combat thats what interested me having them face off against one another. I think france is very very divided and whats even more disconcerting is that these two frances never encountered each other. French society is split and not just since the last elections many fear that president emmanuel macaws new reforms will drive even more people into the arms of the right wing populist one as you know or National Front in his semi autobiographical novel the end of any young writer it while doing describes the violence and the desperation of life in a french factory town. The book deals with racism homophobia poverty and people who feel the politicians dont respect them. Today when people speak of france they dont mean my parents they dont mean the working class there was a very profound sense of injustice that i felt early on which pushed me to write i felt it not only in politics but in literature too thats to say there was a kind of invisibility more than that a violent kind of exclusion because people didnt know that the folks i described in my books even exist. Exist. Paris plaster the public francis founding values liberty equality and fraternity are celebrated here. Its also the starting point for a while louise second novel history of violence here he once again tells his own story. He invites a young algerian to come home with him. The stranger then rapes and almost kills him. The book explores how violence is generated passed on and multiplied in a xena phobic and homophobic society. That its this multiplicity of violence that im trying to track because the politicians arent doing it so its up. Literature or other people to do it and thats what im trying to do. In its many facets contemporary French Literature reflects the shifts and tensions felt in present day france but it also opens up new horizons after all there are authors from several continents writing in french. One of the most exciting of these voices is guy f. A. He was born in burundi in one thousand nine hundred two but fled to france as a teenager to escape the civil war between the hutus and tutsis. Saw it all. And we thought if you know the fuse. Just. For. Us. Gay f. A. A. Is a musician and now lives in rwanda his homeland of burundi is a frequent theme in his songs but at some point he felt the need to write the story of his Little Country down on paper. As a search for the lost paradise of his childhood. Unfortunately when i arrived in france at the age of thirteen all i remembered about it was the two years of war i just lived through. The country where i was born and where id grown up now had an odor of blood and gunpowder. I want to rediscover the scent of mangoes and the scent of the gardens that were there before the war. To love all idea. So while faith does write about the bloody conflicts the murders that take place between hutus and tutsis who were sworn enemies and eventually forced his protagonist into exile. He also writes about his childhood in burundi about everyday life before the violence erupted. In france pain was a bestseller and won several major book prizes. For the. Kind of resources. I believe this also helps young rwandans young burundis understand that they dont have to write stories about elsewhere for the world to take an interest. In the success of my novel shows that the best means of touching a universal nerve is to talk about yourself. And thats what i try to tell Young Students take up your pens and paper and write down your stories. In. The book there is a huge buzz are the Worlds LargestTrading Center for rights and licenses hundreds of agents from all over the world have their appointment diaries filled to bursting in frankfurt and publishers from all over the world i hear take say gold books one of the most distinguished Publishing Houses in india based in calcutta and london with a focus on european literature. I think a shot found a director of sick. Books in a country like india with one point three billion people and more than twenty official languages where do german or european books german or european literature find their readers or first of all the european lives jersey i like to call it. Is not new. Its been really incarnated at the moment over the last ten years this is true but when i was growing up in the late sixtys or seventys you could actually get european tossed nations and wonderful literature on the sidewalks and it disappeared because you know a certain kind of person took over publishing where numbers mattered. And after a gap of thirty years again in the country you were beginning to build slowly interest in european literature and to jump a little i now find to my distributors reports that socalled small town in the outside the metropolitans it is amazing i mean we can actually pinpoint who is reading theres a growing middle class in india that does all those down theres always been a growing middle class of india with a great book or a guess but when the guardian does story on retail it india is one of the growing middle class one point three billion fantastic reading one of the really liberating a certain region of india thats all thats available the world to disappear we are trying desperately slowly to bring that. Thats interesting and for that also you regularly travel to the frank a book fair what do you hope to find here frank for when as an indian novel published the frankfurt some more still important thing is that sense of community and the baby knows that the figure comes meaningless we come to put a face to each other again and again the deals happen of course that he is happy with the reason happy because were in touch with each other anyway what german author. To interest you at the most in the moment we just saw a robot manasseh which is one of you authors as well as getting the german price right so what names are horse or you would do the same with us is that you see caught implies a certain seeking for the dog to success when people ask me who is a tall girl here i dont actually have a response my dog that audience is me as a target reader my colleagues as target readers if it rings a bell like if we start my heads become like a church thats when we say ok we love those good old christophe transpire over his life because we discovered him through ensberg owes a dear dear dear friend had who always says to us that we dont know how you do this why do you care to publish me when your body is obviously buying them in america so when i grew up reading your were not such a pleasure to have my revenge by publishing your if we talk about in your literature in germany you would think of brand names like our own dr roy. Help us what is beyond these whole name is james is there anything we should get when you know its almost english language writing this that the common girl not that there undeserving either but when youre see history as an independent german publishers want to discover you have to do the detective work of finding out the many medias that exist in the language. And of course there are certain languages which are difficult to translate for the principal languages whether to even go only when i look up but out you can find it just turns it into my suggestion always is look to the language. That nobody says thank you very much thank you and to never think of it thank you thank you. Frankfurt book fair thats more than seven thousand eggs. From one hundred countries three hundred thousand visitors one thousand writers. Now get a good book and start reading at least thats what im going to do right now next week and ill try to watch. European stars deliver rousing performances. By. All around us. The norwegian folklore quartet cuts come out. Of the concert in fifteen minute detail. I love my job and the most video you dont want to see landed. Me a son mia who loves it. Starting october fifteenth on d w and online. On the fast steps of central asia. And expedition in search of an ancient denizen of kazakhstan the saigon antelope species since mammoth time thats about. A year ago scientists found evidence of a mysterious catastrophe i saw with my own eyes the first it saigons like that. Which killed so many of them and or those that are alive endangered psychos in distress find out more in our interactive internet documentary at d w dot com site gus. Because the way they start to divide the country i do it deals with where they start to divide the language blood will flow for two. Thousand nine hundred ninety s. The soviet union is breaking up part. Of. The members of the Russian Federation would have to find their own way politically and economically above some of it was an incredibly difficult task not misadventure because democracy was a lie but if the elections were a fraud because privatization was robbery just because instead of cultivating its culture its words and language and brought forth a recalls of nationalism. The suv unions heritage where does russia stand today and moscows in our series starting november fifth on g. W. This is deja vu news coming to wind from berlin roads are being counted in both german and austrian elections with each hour bringing fresh developments germanys as the day takes the lead in a vote in lower saxony an unexpected turn out for a dismal showing in National Elections will bring you the latest numbers and tell you what they might mean for chancellor Angela Merkel and