Frankfurt Book Fair choses 'India' as theme for 2006 NT News Service Margao March 27: The Frankfurt Book Fair has chosen 'India' as a theme for its 2006 book fair to be held in mid-October at Frankfurt, Germany. Disclosing this to reporters at a city hotel, the Punjab-born German writer, Mr Rajvinder Singh stated that this was the second time theme 'India' was chosen within a span of 25 years as "it is the only country in the world having 24-language literature to its credit."
As a part of the task entrusted to him by the Frankfurt Book Fair Company, Mr Singh visited Goa today. Last year the theme was 'Enter Korea.' Mr Singh was awarded doctoral research fellowship in semiotics at the TU Berlin in 1989-90 and has various degrees to his credit. He would be meeting Indian writers including vernacular writers and young writers and explain them about the opportunity offered to these writers by the book fair company. Expressing his idea of focusing Indians writers at the book fair, Mr Singh said that he would meet most of the prominent writers and convey the ideas of exhibiting India through literature. He however felt that the National Book Trust (NBT) and the Sahitya Academy should approach the writers putting such an opportunity before them. He expressed displeasure over most of the Indians being unaware of the fact that India was chosen as a topic for the Frankfurt Book Fair 2006. Mr Singh revealed that many Germans and other foreign students are showing interest in learning through Indian Universities and "if the Indian government, allow these students, it would be of great help to translate the Indian literature into foreign languages." "And, this would rightly bridge the gap of qualified translators of India," he observed. "'Information politics' and 'translation politics' need to be changed in India to give more exposure to Indian writers," he stated. According to Mr Singh, Indian government should not spend more on arms and ammunition but on education. The Germany writer who has visited Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa so far, encouraging the Indian writers to pounce on the available opportunity said that the Frankfurt Book Fair was an important event to facilitate the negotiation of the international sale of rights and licences. When asked as to how he was attracted towards the German language, he informed that he had left home at the age of 16 and being the student leader, he and his friends had published a weekly in his Punjabi language expressing the factual position. "I traveled to France, Belgium, Holland and other countries but being too expensive to study, chose Germany with the help of German friends and later settled in the year 1997." He advised the young writers to keep reading more and more literature which would help them to become good writers. ~(^^)~ Avelino _____________________________________________ Do not post admin requests to the list. Goanet mailing list (Goanet@goanet.org) Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: %(user_optionsurl)s This email sent to %(user_address)s