| The non/fiction fair has opened You get used to good things quickly. The International Intellectual Book Fair, better known as non/fiction, is being held for the fourth time. Everything is in the same place - in the Central House of Artists on Krymsky Val. All at the same time - at the transition from autumn to winter, in the “beginning” of summing up the literary results and distributing bonus elephants. With the same main characters. The effect, of course, is no longer the same as it was in 1999, when non/fiction thundered from the cloudy November sky. Like, intellectuals also know how to love (in the sense of publishing and selling books). Like, we don’t have some kind of official station MIBF, but a continuous feast of the mind.
In fact, even then the “eventfulness” was greatly exaggerated. The struggle for the prestige of smart books in post-Soviet Russia began much earlier. If you look for starting points, then you will have to retreat back to the autumn of 1992, when the New Literary Review arose (not yet a multidisciplinary company, but an “ordinary” literary magazine) and the first “intellectual” store “October 19” opened in the capital, alas, long deceased, but gratefully remembered. As for the difference between non/fiction and the autumn (MIBF) and spring (Books of Russia) shows of book industry achievements, it is rather proclaimed than tangible. And today, at non/fiction, one of the main publishing monsters, Olma-Press, is exhibiting (and selling, and by no means elite products) (and the absence of EKSMO is puzzling), and at “big fairs” “small” publishing houses are actively holding their stock. No one will be able to make it to all the “cultural events” of the next “book week” (and who needs that?), but you can get to the presentation you are interested in (seminar, meeting with a writer, etc.) at both the Central House of Artists and the All-Russian Exhibition Center . Not to mention purchasing new products. Or those publications that have been in stores for years, but have never been tempted before. There are also plenty of these at all fairs.
In other words, the specificity of current non/fiction is that it has no specificity. Yes, some publishers have timed the release of new good books to coincide with the fair. For example, “UFO” continued the series of laureates and applicants for the Andrei Bely Prize, “Limbus Press” acquired a series of criticism “Instance of Taste”, Symposium not only once again dumped all the works of Umberto Eco translated into Russian, but also presented the “Dictionary of “Foucault’s Pendulum” , “Zakharov” published poetry collections by Vera Pavlova and Mikhail Pozdnyaev, and our “Time” dared to amuse the most respectable audience with “Porri Gutter”. Well, if it weren’t for the fair, these books wouldn’t have seen the light of day? Wouldn't you be able to get into the stores? Yes, within the framework of non/fiction there was a multi-day international seminar “Literature, the market and literary criticism”, a seminar “Is it easy to be a publisher” (I remember the old joke: “it’s hard to live - people die from it”), a round table “Intellectual textbook as an element of the culture and education of a person of the 21st century” (in my opinion, the authors of this formulation should be disqualified for about five years)... But such talk happens without a reason - there would be a desire to talk in one’s own circle. Yes, new winners of the Andrei Bely, Waxmacher and Leroy-Beaulieu awards will be named, but these awards existed before non/fiction. Yes, it’s nice that Volker Neumann, dear director of the Frankfurt Book Fair, came to us . But we already knew that in 2003 Russia would become the guest of honor in Frankfurt. And in general, you get used to good things quickly.
As well as bad. The deservedly thunderous non/fiction series “Original” did not last a year. The rapidly asserting series of modern literature from the publishing house "MK - Periodicals" froze on books published for the MIBF. (I reached for the new volume “Poetry of Thirty Years”, and this is a layout.) The new suppliers of intellectual products “Three Squares” and “Pragmatics of Culture” seem to be holding on confidently, but God only knows how long they will last. We see how many bright beginnings come to naught. How “intellectual publishing houses” print outright recycled materials if they receive grants for it. How PR and an established reputation mask impoverishment and stupidity. How they pass off 100% fiction as non/fiction.
But there is still more good. What can you be convinced of before December 2nd? And especially on November 30, at 18.00, when Andrei Zhvalevsky and Igor Mytko, the authors of the book “Porry Gutter and the Stone Philosopher,” will meet with the guests of the fair. And even after the closure of non/fiction, life will not end. There are many bookstores in Moscow. It’s better without specifics, but with books, than vice versa. Andrey NEMZER |
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