In reality, volcanic eruptions can only be tolerated from a certain distance, but in art they can be downright insightful: “One day I moved out to gain my strength and found the fire,” it says on a billboard at the far end of Hall 4.1 between lots of colorful pictures that show stylized volcanic eruptions, often in close connection with human bodies, as if the all-changing eruption belonged to a person, to a life.

The sheets are simple prints on thin cardboard, they hang on the wall with nails, above the bare hall ceiling with its tubes and lights.

The associated manifesto ends with the sentence: "We don't feel fear, we feel heat."

Tilman Spreckelsen

Editor in the features section.

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It would have been a nice motto for this edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair, but the official “re: connect” hit it well. Two years after the last one, when no one suspected Corona and 7500 exhibitors had come, and one year after the hybrid edition under the almost gallows-humorous motto "All together now", a good 2000 exhibitors met a total of 73,000 visitors . It was foreseeable that the halls sometimes looked empty, that the calendar of many trade fair veterans had significant gaps, which at least led to more spontaneous encounters and relaxed conversations. Few of them seemed rushed, even if some publishers would have liked better capacity utilization for their authors who had come specially. After all, Open Books came tothe reading festival of the city of Frankfurt held parallel to the fair, 6500 visitors to 140 events.

Of course you could get excited

Other authors canceled their appearances and thus protested against the presence of a right-wing publisher, which was then widely discussed from the start, although the topic has been part of the Leipzig and Frankfurt Book Fair for several years without a solution in sight. In the Bayerischer Rundfunk's “Diwan” broadcast recorded at the fair, the author Felicitas Hoppe upheld the principle of direct exchange and said that it was “incredibly important to come here this year,” which the author Kirsten Fuchs said she found “It's incredibly important not to come here this year,” and by then the direct exchange seemed to have come to an end. Actually, Fuchs then said, she would have canceled her appearances at the fair, but her publisher - Rowohlt - would have "very much asked"to withdraw this decision What one can understand: After all, her publishing colleague Matthias Nawrat, also planned for this “Divan” recording, canceled the appointment out of solidarity with another Rowohlt author who did not feel safe at the fair in the presence of the right-wing publisher . It was left to the novelist and translator Stefan Moster to recall the obvious: “The problem is that these people exist at all.” He does not see the need to clear the field so that the champagne glasses are raised at the stand of the right-wing publisher : "This is still our book fair and not theirs."The appointment was canceled out of solidarity with another Rowohlt author who did not feel safe at the fair in the presence of the right-wing publisher. It was left to the novelist and translator Stefan Moster to recall the obvious: “The problem is that these people exist at all.” He does not see the need to clear the field so that the champagne glasses are raised at the stand of the right-wing publisher : "This is still our book fair and not theirs."The appointment was canceled out of solidarity with another Rowohlt author who did not feel safe at the fair in the presence of the right-wing publisher. It was left to the novelist and translator Stefan Moster to recall the obvious: “The problem is that these people exist at all.” He does not see the need to clear the field so that the champagne glasses are raised at the stand of the right-wing publisher : "This is still our book fair and not theirs.""This is still our book fair and not theirs.""This is still our book fair and not theirs."

What had become of the euphoric mood that prevailed last Monday at the book award ceremony for Antje Rávic Strubel, who received a standing ovation?

From the joy of seeing you again, the feeling of departure?

Of course you could get excited about the annoying Corona checks, the pandemic-related stalls, the wide aisles in between, for which the word "Autobahn" soon became established, and the absent publishers, who, like last year, deal with the safety of their employees and at the same time justified with the hygiene concept of the fair.

And then there was the rail chaos on Thursday, which forced some arriving participants to turn back.