Book Fair Fail

[selenak]

These days I'm wondering about a German equivalent of the internet term "fail", because "Versagen" just doesn't have the same pithy anger in it, and in the case I'm thinking of, it should. Upcoming elections and the ongoing Opel saga aside, two things are occupying the front pages of our newspapers: the Afghanistan air strike, because a German colonel gave the order and it shattered once and for all the idea we could just do police work in Afghanistan and not get civilians killed - and the fact that the organizers of the Frankfurt Book Fair gave in to Chinese demands (China is this year's guest of honour) and after inviting them first excluded dissident writers Dai Qing and Bai Ling. When we had the PEN meeting in Görlitz earlier this year we were afraid something like this might happen, and sure enough, it did, so the German PEN immediately stepped in and invited Dai Qing and Bai Ling to Frankfurt instead. (They'll come.) Whether or not the organizers will have the gall to physically ban them from the symbosium the Chinese goverment didn't want to see them at remains to be seen, but I don't think so, considering they're facing the publicity from hell already, and considerable anger. To recapitulate: the world's largest Book Fair, a yearly event that yes, is for trade, but also to celebrate the written word and the freedom of same, is bowing down to the demands of a dictatorship and punishing writers who have the courage to write non-party line following content. (Here is an article in German about this; I haven't seen anything in English-written papers yet.) With the lame excuse that "we want to talk to the official China, not just to dissidents". See why I wish we had a world like "fail" to yell?

In better news, I very much enjoyed reading two interviews this morning, one with Judi Dench and one with Hilary Mantel. And a spirited defense of Mrs. Bennet. Because if you finish your morning papers seething with indignation, you do need something like this...