International book fairs

The recent challenges arising from globalization and internationalization phenomena and the increasing specific weight—also quantifiable at various levels (Carrasco Arroyo, 2006)—that culture has come to have in these processes, reveal a (growing) interest shared by many countries and cities in matters of innovation, institutional strengthening, entrepreneurship, cultural diversity, and sustainable development.

Linked to this are the cultural and literary events we call festivals/celebrations and book fairs. These are activities in which the literary, cultural, and economic spheres converge in spaces—usually urban—that seek singularization and projection strategies. Academic interest in their analysis has increased significantly in the current century.Footnote 1 (Driscoll & Squires, 2020; Flood, 2007; Giorgi et al., 2013; Martínez Tejero, 2019; Sapiro, 2016; Villarino Pardo, 2022).

In this article we will focus on International book fairs (IBF). In order to observe and to try to better understand these types of events that Gustavo Sorá described as “complex events” (2004, p. 58). In recent years there have been critical advances from different areas of knowledge such as anthropology and ethnography (Sorá, 2013); history, literature and sociology (Bosshard & García Naharro, 2019; Villarino Pardo et al., 2021); and, more specifically, from the sociology of culture and literature, whose perspectives are adopted here.

In several of these studies there are proposals to define what IBFs are (Weidhaas, 2011, p. 201) and even attempts to classify them (Uribe Schroeder, 2012; Villarino Pardo, 2021) according to the perspective or professional field of the author and the moment in which they are published. According to some of these approaches, an international book fair (IBF) is a periodic event “in a concentrated space” (UNESCO, 2010, p. 119) that brings together the multiple actors of the book chain. At the same time, they are meetings that “provide an ideal opportunity for market research” (Owen, 2008, p. 103), in addition to being a space where “different kinds of values are produced, negotiated, and transacted” (Moeran & Strandgaard Pedersen, 2011, p. 2). They themselves configure a “ritual,” given that they are “extraordinary manifestations in relation to the rhythm of daily activity” (Sorá, 2004, p. 64).

In a special report of the International Publishers Association (IPA), The future of Book Fairs (2015) it is noted that “book fairs come in all shapes and sizes, attracting a variety of publics and serving different purposes” (IPA, 2015, p. 2). It is worth keeping in mind that IBFs have undergone important changes derived from new modes of circulation and transnational business (in particular with regards to the ebook and digital phenomena), of communication—especially linked to new technologies, of activities—opening up spaces to new concerns (sexual diversity, feminisms, functional diversity and disability, environment, bloggers, booktubers, bookstagrammers y booktokersFootnote 2 etc.), and of celebration—fundamentally in the (post-) COVID-19 era.Footnote 3

Thus, in recent years, we observe how in addition to the well-known models inaugurated by the Frankfurter Buchmesse and the Salon du Livre de ParisFootnote 4 of inviting countries as honorees for each edition of these events or of celebrating “themes” (Bosshard & García Naharro, 2019; Galanes Santos, 2021; Muniz Júnior & Szpilbarg, 2016; Sorá, 2013; Weidhaas, 2011), there are several fairs—Salon du Livre de Paris/Livre Paris, the IBF of Buenos Aires and, in some specific case, the IBF of Guadalajara—that have opened an important exhibition space to present new subjects as guests of honor. It is, in a way, an instrument to rebalance positions in the transnational sphere as well as to perform other types of functions (Sorá, 2021, p. 43).

Thus, an explicit invitation is extended to:

  1. (a)

    a culture: as is the case, for example, of “Catalan Culture” when it was awarded this distinction at the IBF Guadalajara 2004 and Frankfurt 2007;

  2. (b)

    an autonomous community/region (and its culture): such as the cases of the Spanish communities of Andalusia (2006) and Castilla León (2010) at the Guadalajara IBF;

  3. (c)

    to “themes,” entities or collectives of diverse nature: with the examples of “Latin America” at the Guadalajara IBF in 2016 or “Europe” at Livre Paris 2019Footnote 5; and,

  4. (d)

    specifically and more recently, to a city. This has been the stance, since 2011, of the Salon du Livre de Paris/Livre Paris (in parallel celebrating countries or other categories, until 2019); of the IBF of Guadalajara in its 2009 (Los Angeles) and 2017 (Madrid) editions; and, in a central way, of the IBF of Buenos Aires since 2013.

As we know, international book fairs are numerous and expensive (Owen, 2008, p. 106); therefore, each subject (individual or collective) or entity (public or private) must analyze and select the one(s) that best fit(s) its profile and possibilities according to the moment, and the objectives and strategies it can develop. Therefore, professionals in the book chain specialized in the sale and purchase of rights tend to opt for those in which the economic dimension of the book industry is a priority—without neglecting other capital at stake (symbolic, cultural, and literary)—and which have specific places for this purpose (Owen, 2008). Institutions (public and private) and policy makers must also make choices when deciding on the participation of a country, a culture/community, or a city in a fair (Dujovne & Sorá, 2010; Stella, 2020; Villarino Pardo, 2022) and, above all, if it includes the distinction of guest of honor given its interest in cultural promotion and internationalization actions (cultural and editorial). From the analysis of International Book Fairs—as a theoretical object or as an object of fieldwork—arises the hypothesis of considering how the IBFs themselves constitute, to a large extent and by themselves, types of ephemeral/temporary cities (Villarino Pardo, 2022, p. 186) that are are integrated into the dynamics of a city (Barcelona, Bogota, Bologna, Buenos Aires, Frankfurt, Guadalajara, London, Madrid, Paris, São Paulo, Shanghai, Sharjah, etc.).

We are in essence dealing with Cities that, in turn, are hosted within cities that they make visible in their names themselves (also as part of a city brand), and with which they dialogue through part of their cultural program. This is mainly visible in the case of the guests of honor (GoH) and when the program goes outside its fairgrounds and into the city that hosts it. And also, of primary importance, is the economic impact they generate on that city/region, linked to the book industry and, during the period of the fair, to various economic and tourism sectors. The latter aspects, for example, have been explicitly highlighted in the I Informe económico sobre las dimensiones de la Feria internacional del libro de Buenos Aires (First Economic Report Buenos Ares International Book Fair, 2020),Footnote 6 commissioned by the Fundación El Libro (https://acortar.link/Xc30O7) in the last pre-COVID-19 edition. In the (post)pandemic period, they have also been evident in other cases: from the direct appeal to the host city made by the so-called “Special Edition” (2020) of the Frankfurter Buchmesse on its websiteFootnote 7 to the impact experienced in the various sectors of these cities due to the cancellations of IBF in its face-to-face format in 2020 (https://acortar.link/GJDTuZ).

These events —mainly in their normal face-to-face versions—are a meeting place, at different levels, for the various agents of the book ecosystem given that, as the 2017 International Publishers Association (IPA) report recalled, “book fairs are a moment where many creative professions converge” (IPA, 2017, p. 3). In their in-person format the IBFs gather together (and it would be necessary to deeply analyze how the models that emerged in the hardest period of the COVID-19Footnote 8 pandemic have been adapted) elements that recall the dynamics and spaces of a city (Villarino Pardo, 2022, p. 187), even in terms of their own forms of sociability (Vila-San Juan, 2007, p.103-110) derived from the face-to-face meeting “in the place”—in the case of professionals, after weeks/months of contacts and work, and “for the meeting”Footnote 9—which includes parties at the venue. Thus, the editions following the toughest period of the pandemic by COVID-19, went from more restricted editions (in number of in-person participants, activities and volume, in 2021) to others that have been gradually recovering part of their previous numbers—as evidenced in the recent Frankfurter Buchmesse in 2022, whose participation was estimated to be 30% lower than in 2019 (Altares, 2022a).

Cultural promotion and the status of guest of honor (GoH) at IBF

In recent decades, culture has been occupying a central role in the debates and concerns of specialists in increasingly broader fields, as well as in the programs and reports of numerous institutions of a national and international standing. In this paper we adopt a broad perspective of culture that includes, as the Declaración de México (1982) recalls, “in addition to the arts and letters, ways of life, fundamental human rights, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (UNESCO, 1982, p. 1). As Itamar Even-Zohar notes, in “the conception of culture as tools, culture is considered as a set of tools for the organization of life, at both the collective and individual level” (Even-Zohar, 2017, p. 77). And a document published by the Centro Regional para el Fomento del Libro en América Latina y el Caribe (the CERLALC, 2018), José Diego González points out that “international book fairs have become cultural activities of an undeniable benefit to citizens” (González, 2018, p. 9).

The visibility of countries, cultures or cities in certain IBFs—at least in models such as those of Frankfurt, Buenos Aires, Guadalajara, Liber Madrid/Barcelona or the Salon du Livre de Paris/Livre Paris—is associated with current strategies in the field of culture (and especially cultural policiesFootnote 10) geared towards fomenting and differentiating them at the international level. As we shall see, these are above all “branding” strategies that have become a tool of cultural diplomacy and soft power (as defined by Nye, 2008). It is worth bearing in mind, according to Morillo (2019, p. 3), that “today the brand is one of the most valued assets, not only by companies and organizations, but also by cities and countries.” Countries (and increasingly, cities) compete (beyond symbols or images) to achieve a reputation, to be attractive, i.e., “setting intangible values” (Morillo, 2019, p. 4), to differentiate among themselves and, among other things, to generate a pride of belonging among their inhabitants. At this point, we ask ourselves the following question: who is more interested in the distinction of guest of honor at an IBF, the fair itself or the honored subject? If we look, for example, at the case of the IBF of Buenos Aires, with more than four decades of tradition and a “mediatically baptized ‘festival of culture’” (Saferstein, 2013, p. 14), we see how, since 2013, it has incorporated the category of Guest City of Honor (with Amsterdam as the protagonist) into its model. On its website, when referring to the different honorees, it is explained that at the fair the organization intends to offer “special, rich, and distinctive cultural content and to help the initiation or strengthening of commercial relations between both book industries.”Footnote 11 On the other hand, the authorities of some of the cities invited to the Argentine fair emphasize the ideas of “privilege,” “honor,” “opportunity,” “showcase/window,” also visible in other country case studies in relation to the meaning of a nomination of this sort. It also serves as a reference, and on this occasion for the Frankfurt IBF, the fact that Peter Weidhaas, the director between 1975 and 2000, recognized that “the Frankfurt Fair also benefited from these country presentations” (Weidhaas, 2011, p. 220).

Thus we know that the condition of GoH represents a cultural and economic showcase; it also requires planning—and not only economically, in the promotion of authorships, editors, translators, mediators and a cultural program (Galanes Santos, 2021; Muniz Júnior & Szpilbarg, 2016; Villarino Pardo, 2022) that benefit not only those who participate but also, as noted, the fair itself. This opportunity and what it implies to accept the commitmentFootnote 12 of starring in an event such as an international book fair (according to their respective models) in terms of planning and investments for years (GoH pavilion/stand, invited delegations, cultural program, curatorships, catalogs, programs to support the translation and circulation of authorship, etc.) for a country(/culture/city) guest of honor at that event were evident when observing what happened during the most complicated period of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Havana, chosen as guest of honor at the 45th edition of the IBF in Buenos Aires (2019), had to wait until May 2022 to make its real landing in the Argentine capital,Footnote 13 already outside the time frame of the festivities for the 500th anniversary of its foundation. The case of Canada and the other countries that held that distinction at the Frankfurt fair in 2020 and the following years are particularly noteworthy.

We pause in this process related to the Frankfurter Buchmesse in order to observe how, due to its centrality on the international book fair circuit,Footnote 14 the change in the model for holding the IBF in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, from face-to-face to mainly virtual, affected the entire book chain sector and who would occupy the distinction of GoH in the fairs adopting this model. In this scenario, Canada asked the organizers of the Frankfurter Buchmesse to postpone its presence as GoH in an edition that looked very uncertain in the months leading up to October 2020. Spain, Slovenia, and Italy accepted the fair’s invitation to postpone their participations by one year and that in the 2020 “Special Edition” the Canadian attendance would be smaller and in a primarily digital format. Thus, what was to be Canada’s first participation in the German event was twofold:Footnote 15 a reduced telematic presence in 2020Footnote 16 and a partly “conventional” way (retinue of guests, cultural program inside and outside the fair, etc.) in 2021,Footnote 17 although—due to restrictions stemming from the pandemic—with a smaller number of participants and public.Footnote 18 Despite the circumstances, the Canadian organization made a positive assessment of its participation.Footnote 19

These movements promoted by Canada to achieve a greater impact through presence, given the exceptional conditions of 2020, confirm the importance of (continued) strategies of cultural policies and economic investment (public and private) not only for the internationalization of a country’s publishing market, as occurred directly in this case, but also for its cultural promotion and brand image (cultural diplomacy and soft power) through the participation as GoH in an IBF—especially in Frankfurt.

Cultural anthropologist Gustavo Sorá draws attention to the fact that “the focal themes and the countries invited as guests of honor objectify the core of the political component that makes up the internationalization of IBFs from non-English-speaking markets” (Sorá, 2021, p. 43). That political impact on IBF (especially linked to the GoH) is palpable in different ways. Most visible is the institutional representation at the opening ceremonies of these types of events, which have also become a political stageat a national and international level. To demonstrate this, we cite some examples linked especially to the German fair itself and to the cases we are dealing with here. Therefore, let us move on from the double Canadian participation in the aforementioned editions, to when Brazil (the first country to be given that distinction) was the GoH at the Frankfurter Buchmesse in 2013. The event was not attended by the President of the Republic, Dilma Rousseff, but by her Vice President (Michel Temer) and other members of the government and the country’s cultural institutions (Ministério da Cultura, Academia Brasileira de Letras, Fundação Biblioteca Nacional) in addition to the members of the GoH delegation and, on the German side, its Foreign Minister and the Director of the fair, among others. In the case of Spain 2022, the opening ceremony was attended not only by Ministers, authorities and entourage, but also by leaders at the highest level, with the presence of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain and the German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and some Ministers. It was a ceremony in which the Russian invasion of Ukraine was addressed in several speeches.

Thus, the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2022 edition will also be remembered more for the war in Ukraine and, in that scenario, for the intervention (videoconference) of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (19/10/2022, https://acortar.link/6a6yso) than for the absence of Russian political and editorial representation. In fact, and for other reasons, Russia was also a political protagonist at Livre Paris 2018 when French President Emmanuel Macron, with Russia featured as guest of honor, issued a statement that the President of the French Republic had decided “in light of the international context, to not appear in the Russian salon, in solidarity with our British friends.” However, the President spoke with Russian intellectuals, authors and translators (https://acortar.link/Uud8qu). The French press referred to this fact in that inaugural session as “boycotting the Russian pavilion,” “ignoring the Russian pavilion,” etc.Footnote 20 Part of the Russian delegation—and not only them—complained about this attitude and expressed their discomfort, commenting that such actions also had important economic repercussions among companies in the sector.Footnote 21

Once again, it becomes clear that the IBFs—even in a (post)pandemic period—are venues for commercial negotiations in the publishing sector but also as outstanding instruments (/tools, in the sense of Even-Zohar, 2017, pp. 76-85) for cultural diplomacy and soft power (Villarino Pardo, 2014) and not only as a place for showing off authors or literary works (Machado de Assis, el Quijote, etc) as goods in a national/local cultural heritage sense.

This explains, among other reasons, the focus of certain institutions and local, regional, or state government authorities on cultural policy strategies in order to obtain this distinction by way of the participation of a GoH in an IBF. To this end, and at a moment of special visibility, the country (/city/culture) makes use of a visible accumulation of energy, as Even-Zohar calls it (2017, p.163, 183), and those fairs are selected which, for a variety of reasons, are considered more relevant for cultural projection (via cultural diplomacy and soft power) and for its publishing industry. These investments are not usually for a single isolated event, but cover multiple fairs, so that a certain “IBF circuit” (Frankfurt, Guadalajara, London, Buenos Aires, etc.) is formed in which, after a specific period of years, the subject’s GoH moment arrives.

As an example of this, we focus on the cases of Brazil and Spain, two countries that, in recent years, have opted for cultural diplomacy strategies through the condition of guest of honor at the main IBFs and because they pertain to linguistic systems that occupy peripheral (Portuguese) and semi-peripheral (Spain) positions, in what Heilbron and Sapiro (2008, p. 29) call the Global Translation System.

In both cases, different ways of presenting the same country to the world can be observed, and not only in the literary and publishing fields, as shown by the slogans they used at the most recent Frankfurter Buchmesse: “Brasil: um país cheio de vozes” (/“Brazil: a country full of voices”, 2013) and “España: Creatividad desbordante” (/“Spain: Overflowing Creativity”, 2022).

Case studies: Brazil and Spain

After leaving behind a period of more than two decades of dictatorship, in the 1990s Brazil was a guest of honor at the following events (Table 1):

Table 1 Presence of Brazil as GoH at IBF (/Salon) in the 1990s
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In 2005, as one of the results of the international country marketing Plano Aquarela, Brazil created a successful country brand. It was understood that, in addition to the image that a country represents by itself (Mariuti & Giraldi, 2012, p. 69), betting on a global marketing strategy benefited the exporting position (Kleppe et al., 2002) of its different strategic sectors (especially in tourism), in the current processes of globalization and transnational circulation of goods (also those of a symbolic nature) and in a scenario of international competitiveness.

Branding studies (country branding, city branding) represent an expanding area in the last thirty years (Anholt, 2000; Aronczyk 2013; Kaneva, 2011; Montanari et al., 2019) as well as their applications to countries and cities.Footnote 22 In essence, it alludes to the “perceptions possessed by countries’ direct, indirect, real and potential consumers” (Valls, 1992, p. 28). Mariutti and Giraldi (2012, p. 70) also highlight that “the importance of the country in the global community, taking into account the political international economic, is a dimension of a country’s image,” among others. So, especially between 2005 and 2016, country branding strategies were understood by Brazilian leaders, during the first two terms of Lula da Silva and those of Dilma Rousseff (Rubim, 2010, 2015), as tools that implied an augment in the international arena—in terms of both symbolic and economic capital, for their products, institutions, companies, or actions.

Thus, the South American country, which has become a world economic power and with outstanding international projectionFootnote 23 at the turn of the first to the second decade of this century, showed its interest in translating this visibility into other fields (sports, cultural, publishing, etc.) and in taking advantage of certain events with significant media repercussions (Grix et al., 2015; Leão & Dennison, 2017).

So, in addition to the organization of the Confederations Cup (2013), the World Youth Day (Rio de Janeiro, 2013), the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the Rio 2016 Olympic Games; in the literary and publishing sphere, these strategies sought to project the (contemporary) image of the country, encourage the export of Brazilian literary and publishing production and consolidate its publishing market worldwide. To this end, different actions were designed and set in motion until the forced departure of Dilma Rousseff from government in 2016. These included direct support for Brazil’s participation as a guest of honor at major international book fairs, the renewal (2011) of the program (created in 1991) to support the translation of works and the dissemination of Brazilian authorship abroad (through the Fundação Biblioteca Nacional, in cooperation with the Ministério das Relações Exteriores do Brasil),Footnote 24 the creation of the Centro Internacional do Livro/Book Center Brazil (2012), the publication of the Machado de Assis Magazine. Brazilian Literature in Translation/Literatura Brasileira em Tradução and, centrally, the commitment to the Brazilian Publishers project. This program, in place since 2008 under a successful agreement between the Câmara Brasileira do Livro (CBL) and the Agência Brasileira de promoção de Exportações e Investimentos - ApexBrasil,Footnote 25 aims at promoting exports of the Brazilian publishing sector and its circulation in the transnational market, in addition to planning the sale of copyrights, organizing participation in IBF, and other related events and researching prospective markets. In this sense, the project also seeks to contribute “to the image and positioning of the country” (https://acortar.link/j6tRVI).

Precisely with this objective of showing the new economic, social, and political moment in the current century as well as the image of a modern country—far from the more traditional one it had shown in the tributes at the fairs of the 1990s—Brazil once again held this distinction at the IBF ofFootnote 26 (Table 2):

Table 2 Brazil as GoH at IBFs (/Salon) between 2000 and 2015
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As Stella (2020, p. 162) pointed out, “in the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s Brazil attracted the attention of the international literary circuit.” What this international projection implies—and not only in terms of the accumulation of literary or economic capital in the publishing field—has been made clear on different occasions (Dujovne, 2022; Lindoso, 2011; Muniz Júnior & Szpilbarg, 2016; Stella, 2020; Villarino Pardo, 2014). As an example, the president of the Fundação Biblioteca Nacional at the time when Brazil was the GoH at the IBF Frankfurt 2013, Renato Lessa highlighted, after the opening ceremony, the fact that the fair was “an opportunity to promote the Brazilian culture” (Frey, 2013), and took the opportunity to promote the continuity of public policies and the support of the private sector for the internationalization of the Brazilian publishing market and literature.

In the case of Spain, the Proyecto de Country Branding was adopted at the end of 2001 with the aim of building, among several institutions “a new image that not only improves the economic projection of the country, but also transmits the new political, social and cultural reality, with its characteristics of modernity, artistic creation, dynamism and economic and cultural power” (Iglesias & Molina, 2008, p.115). According to the Global Soft Power Index of the consultancy Brand Finance in 2022—the most recent of this nature—Spain increases its power of influence and is placed, according to its metrics, at 11th place, with the Culture & Heritage field (5th place) being one of the best valued (https://acortar.link/zHivkf). The 2019 publication of The Soft Power 30 by Portland Consulting already highlighted the importance of Spain’s cultural legacy in its soft power (https://softpower30.com/country/spain/).

In the concrete political and cultural scenario of recent years, SpainFootnote 27 has again taken an interest in IBF presence as a way to expand its international projection through literature and—in the broad sense that we adopt here—culture, as have other surrounding countries distinguished with the status of guests of honor of the Franfurter Buchmesse (in this period, France in 1989 and 2017 or Italy, in 1988 and 2024), This is shown by the fact that it has been honored at the following international book fairs in recent years (Table 3):

Table 3 Presence of Spain as GoH in IBF between 2019 and 2025
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The capitalization that Spain intends to make of these current investments in transnational cultural projection is shown, in part, in the institutional presentation of the agreements that allow this cultural and literary mission and in the significant fact of framing these actions in March 2022 as reinforcement of “the mission and investments that Spain is making through the PERTE of the new economy of language” Footnote 28(https://acortar.link/AabyPn), with primary funding coming out of the Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia (“The Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan”) of the European Union (PERTE).

These actions are complemented by the boost given to the translation and sale of rights of Spanish works (two of the main objectives of this internationalization program),Footnote 29 in the country’s different official languages, on the Books from Spain website, an initiative of the Ministry of Culture and Sports (MCyD), Acción Cultural Española (AC /E) and the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España (FGEE), created in July 2020 with the aim of promoting the sale of rights—especially online during the period in which there were no face-to-face professional meetings due to the pandemicFootnote 30—and making the most of Spain’s participation in the German fair, but not only at the IBF (https: //short. link/1cX51y). An objective that, according to the organization—as well as in the opinion of several authors—and at the end of the fair, would have been satisfactorily achievedFootnote 31 both in terms of the impact during the days of the IBF and in the volume of translated works and, consequently, in the Spanish publishing industry’s process of internationalization.

The organizers of Spain GoH at the Frankfurter Buchmesse insisted (and it was echoed in certain media) that it was a “State project” (https://acortar.link/fVsduQ). A state cultural policy plan in whose discourse actions such as the Spanish participationFootnote 32 as guest of honor at the Sharjah IBF in 2021 have contributed/contribute, where it was emphasized that this protagonism is a (prominent) action of a broader strategy of projection. In this case it was explained, in a place “Where, for several years now, cultural diplomacy has been working to turn Spanish creations into star brands as well as attracting high-end tourism” (Carroto, 2021).Footnote 33

Spain was presented as GoH at the 2022 Frankfurter Buchmesse, being the 5th country in production of book titles —both in paper and digital format— following the United Kingdom, the Russian Federation, France and Italy Footnote 34and with a publishing market very different in nature to that of 1992, one which “has undergone a great transformation to become the main cultural activity in our country” (FGEE, 2021, p. 9). According to the 29th study of the Foreign Book Trade prepared by the Association of Spanish Chambers of Books (ACLE), “The publishing industry is one of the most internationalized sectors of the Spanish economy in intensity and longevity” (FGEE, 2021, p. 8). Regarding rights, the aforementioned report pointed out that in 2020, a total of 72.89 million euros was invoiced in rights sales, an increase of practically 2 million euros, “English being the language in which the most rights are sold” (ibidem). The same document explains that “efforts to consolidate and increase these new markets are still necessary.”Footnote 35 That current figure falls a bit from the 63.01 million euros of rights sales in 2009 and remains in slightly better figures than those of the last 5 years (2015–2020) (ACLE, 2021, p. 33). We will have to wait to know the specific figures relating to 2022 and the possible Frankfurt 2022 effect.

Here again, SpainFrankfurt 2022 was intended to constitute a medium-term cultural policy strategy. To this end, it is also emphasized that the translation aid program initiated in 1984 is “a basic tool” and that, with this project for 2022, its budget was significantly increased and it gained greater visibility in terms of the number of titles, publishers, and authors benefiting from the program. The press dossier of the Spain Guest of Honour Frankfurt 2022 Program stresses that these support initiatives “have proven to be an effective instrument for the international dissemination of our literature in all the languages of the State,” so, for the occasion, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) added a specific program, “this time focusing on five strategic markets defined with the sector: German, English, French, Italian and Dutch.” (https://acortar.link/BiyIBt). A choice that, as we shall see, takes into account the weight of these languages in international translation flows.

Thus, still pending the resolution of the 4th edition (https://acortar.link/MgmaPK), the “Radiography of grants for the translation of literary and scientific works written in Spanish into foreign languages” (https://acortar.link/1NTL4q) shows that this aid program of the MCyD of the Spanish government and AC/E, between 2019 and 2022, has allocated a total of €3,160,000Footnote 36 to the promotion of translation into foreign languages. It would have benefited 1313 applications from “Spanish publishers and agents for the translation of fragments (copyright sales dossiers)” and of “foreign publishers for the translation of complete works, anthologies and support for illustration.” (ibidem).

In this balance sheet, the strategic markets for the translation of Spanish titles, according to the number of works translated during that period,Footnote 37 are as in (Figure 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Our elaboration based on data from SpainFrankfurt 2022 (https://acortar.link/1NTL4q)

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These are strategies adopted by states to support cultural exchanges at the transnational level with a view towards reorienting export policies and responsibility for tasks traditionally associated with the diplomatic sphere (Sapiro, 2008, p.12). This is intended to favor the transnational circulation of Spanish works and authorship and, specifically, the sale of title rights to markets beyond Germany.

To better understand this data, both in the analyses of the Spanish and Brazilian cases, it is worth bearing in mind that transnational cultural exchanges, as Heilbron (2009, p. 259) reminds us, have their own dynamics. Thus, as in other aspects of the circulation of symbolic goods, these transnational flows reveal logics that are not necessarily in direct correspondence with the geopolitical positions of countries or with the number of speakers of a language. Jean Heilbron stresses that “the international translation system is above all a hierarchical structure with central, semi-peripheral and peripheral language groups.” (Heilbron, 2009, p. 261). A system in which, as we noted, English—and not only for the period initially studied—occupies a position of hypercentrality, followed by French and German (central positions) and other languages in semi-peripheral positions (Spanish, Italian, Russian and Swedish) and peripheral (Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, etc.) ones (Es & Heilbron, 2015, p. 3). In that framework, the usual translation flows go from center to the periphery rather than in the other direction (Heilbron & Sapiro, 2008, p. 29), in a movement in which “communication between the peripheral groups often takes place through a center” (Heilbron, 2009, p. 264).

Given that the main objective is the transnational circulation of this symbolic good, those linguistic spaces or publishing markets that can function as springboards or as channels of intermediation between linguistic-cultural-publishing spaces are usually seen as important for those who plan or manage these types of dynamics—at the private or public level. So, the main languages into which Spanish works have been translated on this occasion including the different languages of the State) with the support of these programs during the period analyzed (2019–2022), are target languages or springboards to another—with English as a prominent destination or “object of desire.”

Returning to the case of Brazil, and on the occasion of the “30-Year Review of the Brazilian National Library Foundation’s Translation Program (1991–2021),” the Book Center Brazil published a balance of the program on 7/20/2021 in which it was highlighted that, up to that moment, and during those three decades, there was a total of 1,114 translations produced by the program, corresponding to 350 authors. Looking at the data of the last decade (2010–2019), the figures reveal a greater international interest in the translation of Brazilian works, distributed as follows: “fiction books received 658 translation grants, followed by non-fiction (132), poetry (73), children and youth literature (58), comic books (29) and theater (9)” (https://centrointernacionaldolivro.wordpress.com/).

Over the past decade, these translations have been translated into the following languages and countries (Figure 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Source of graphs: https://acortar.link/ZiK58P

Results of languages benefited by the translation program (2010–2019).

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If we take a closer look at that period—as Feres and Brisolara (2018) do—we note how the renewal of the Program to Support the Translation and Publication of Brazilian Authors Abroad in 2011Footnote 38—just when the country was preparing for its premiere as Guest of Honor at the Frankfurter Buchmesse—reveals a notorious increase of “1,080%” of translations in Germany in the 2013 call (59 works) in relation to the volume of translations in the previous year (5) (Feres & Brisolara, 2018, p. 339); in a context of an increasing number of translations, countries and languages, as shown by these authors in the following graph (Figures 3, 4).

Fig. 3
figure 3

Feres and Brisolara (2018, p. 339)

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Fig. 4
figure 4

Feres and Brisolara (2018, p. 339)

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In the following years and until the last IBF in which Brazil was honored as the Guest of Honor Country (Salon du Livre de Paris, in 2015), the transnational interest in the translation of Brazilian literary works, to a large extent (as we observe from the data of the translation program) moves according to fair appearances. Thus, in 2014 and according to the same authors, there were 136 works translated and published in 30 countries; France being the country with the largest number of titles stemming from the program—“25 títulos (contra 12 do ano anterior)” (Feres & Brisolara, 2018, p. 340). In contrast to this increase in the Salon’s host country, in the year following the Brazilian presence at the Frankfurter Buchmesse in 2013 when its publishers garnered 59 published titles under the program, they mention that “surprisingly,” “Brazilian works are simply not published in 2014, either because no German publisher applied for the grants or because none of those who applied had their project selected to receive the incentive” (Feres & Brisolara, 2018, p. 340). Spain (the country that has benefited most from this type of aid) and Italy continue to be countries with an interest in translating Brazilian works throughout those 30 years and in the specific period of 2010–2019 (focus of the Book Center Brazil analysis).

As published in 2005 in one of the periodic bulletins of the Vivaleitura programFootnote 39—linked to the Año Iberoamericano de la Lectura—at a time when Brazil was guest of honor at the IBF in HavanaFootnote 40 and was the “eighth largest book producer in the world and the largest publishing industry in Latin America” (Assessoria Vivaleitura, 2005), in this (necessary) process of internationalization, not only would the different members of the book production chain benefit, but “in the export of publishing products to the entire culture in international projection” (ibidem).

Final considerations

Currently, international book fairs (and, increasingly, literary festivals) have a marked calendar not only in the annual agendas of the various actors involved in the publishing market but also of those responsible for cultural policies at various levels. Through their different models, IBFs have become increasingly important places for the mediation and attainment of capital (symbolic, economic, literary or cultural) and positions in a supposedly transnational literary (cultural and publishing) field, not only for publishers, literary agencies or authors, but also for countries, cultures, and cities. Thus, in addition to those bodies representing authors,’ publishers’ or translators’ guilds, as we have seen in different cases, there is also a real interest shown by various leaders and government bodies (at local, regional, state or supranational level) that include the participation of countries/cultures/cities in these events—particularly via the condition of guest of honor—as strategic attempts to publicize certain aspects of branding (country brand, city brand).

In instances such as the IBFs, these participants, especially in the condition of GoH, stage a representation of ‘the national’/’the local’/’the common’ (depending on the type of participant), of how they wish to be seen and (re)known at that moment. Through a program (literary and cultural) and visual representation (also in the presence of the fair and the city that hosts it) they take advantage of the fact that the event attracts significant media and public attention and present their ‘story(s)’—those that, to a large extent, define and summarize them at that moment. In short, a way of conveying their image (country/city/culture). This is what, at different times and in different IBFs, countries such as Brazil or Spain have done. Their participations in the Frankfurter Buchmesse of 2013 and 2022, respectively, showed those “stories” that they summarized in their slogans, based on several pillars: In the South American country’s presence antropofagia is the central theme consisting of six thematic emphases (a country full of voices, in permanent cultural co-creation; plurality; cosmopolitanism; diversity; miscegenation; bibliodiversity). In the Spanish case five foci are present (bibliodiversity, innovation, linguistic plurality, gender equality, and sustainability).

It is clear that IBFs are cultural events that are also political events. Public institutions—at different levels—and private institutions—generally publishing groups—participate in these dynamics as organizers, aware that they must take advantage of the opportunity to make the most of these mechanisms of internationalization (of a literary system and a publishing market, especially through translation and the sale of rights) and the acquisition of capital in order to present a certain country image as well. What happened with Canadian participation at the German fair (and the subsequent ones—including the Spanish—during the COVID-19 pandemic) is a good example of this. In fact, the Canadian organization explained that being GoH at the Frankfurter Buchmesse meant “a prestigious opportunity to showcase a country’s publishing, cultural and creative industries. It is an event of international significance akin to the World Expo and the Olympics for literature. On the international publishing stage, no other event offers a comparable level of visibility and impact” (https://canadafbm2021.com/).

Hence, the IBFs are now opportunities and tools for promoting not only literature and culture but also tourism and creative industries (most of all in the publishing sector), and for making the position of these social and territorial entities visible in a global scenario of symbolic goods by means of their literary and cultural projection at these events. So, by way of an open-ended conclusion, the question arises: once you have completed a certain IBF circuit as a guest of honor on more than one occasion—being invited twice at the Frankfurter Buchmesse, for example, like Brazil or Spain—where is the next stop towards achieving the goals that you fulfilled there?