India participates each year at the Buchmesse through the National Book Trust, but the Buchmesse presence in India has been, shall we say, casual?
Okay, if you read TNPS regularly then you know already that India is wall-to-wall book fairs. Fifteen TNPS reports on India so far in 2025, and plenty more to come.
Publishing Perspectives even offered some coverage of the New Delhi World Book Fair this year. But only because there was an India-related PublisHer press release from Sharjah needing a home.
And surprise, surprise, Anderson covered New Delhi in 2024, again because a Sharjah press release was to hand.
India publishing news is not considered news at Publishing Perspectives unless there’s a Sharjah, IPA, Bologna or PRH angle.
Expect that to change this year, after Claudia Kaiser, the Buchmesse Business Development VP, highlighted India’s vibrant literary scene and global publishing ties, per a report in the Indian trade journal FrontList.
India hosts the highest number of book fairs and literary events globally, says Kaiser, with every major city, including Pune, Jaipur, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore, hosting a book event.
Frankfurt Book Fair and India – It’s Been Thirty Years…
Per FrontList, the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest publishing trade fair, is primarily a B2B platform, unlike India’s book fairs, which encourage public participation.
Which is right in the first part, but lately public attendance at Frankfurt has been matching trade visitor numbers as the Buchmesse tries to get the best of both worlds. The Buchmesse’s 230,000 visitors in 2024 were evenly split 115,000 each public and trade.
India participates each year at the Buchmesse through the National Book Trust, but the Buchmesse presence at New Delhi has been, shall we say, casual?
Kaiser rightly notes India’s Kolkata International Book Fair, which is bigger than New Delhi, was inspired by the Frankfurt model.
As TNPS readers will remember from a recent report on Kolkata, in 1983 Peter Withers, then Buchmesse director, visited Kolkata.
But FrontList reports that Frankfurt representatives last visited Kolkata in 1997, almost thirty years ago.
Kolkata, which is just winding up as I write this, has Germany as Guest of Honour, hence the Buchmesse being on the ground in India this year, with talks underway to renew exchanges between the two countries.
I guess Porter Anderson will get a memo shortly from Buchmesse HQ to look up India on the world map.
