IPA Congress 2018: Juergen Boos of Frankfurt Book Fair in India
Attending the 32nd International Publishers Association Congress, held at Hotel Taj Diplomatic Enclave, New Delhi, from 10 to 14 February 2018, Juergen Boos, president and CEO, Frankfurt Book Fair, spoke on the issue of self-censorship as a part of a panel discussion ‘The Threat of Self-Censorship in Publishing’.
15 Feb 2018 | By Dibyajyoti Sarma
Boos with his co-panellists during the IPA Congress 2018
The fact that self-censorship crops up in different places and in various forms is a concern for the industry. “Open discussion of the issue with all its implications is paramount for our industry in this context,” said Boos.
As part of his discussion on the panel, he said, “Freedom to publish is the DNA, the backbone of the book fairs worldwide; storytelling is political because it’s speaking about the society.”
The session was chaired by Kristenn Einarsson, CEO Norweigian Publishers Association; chair, IPA Freedom to Publish Committee. Boos’s co-panellists were William Nygaard, retired CEO, Aschehoug, Norway; Narsimhan Ram, Chairman, The Hindu Group, India; and, Trasvin Jittidecharak, Silkworm Books, Thailand.
Boos is the president/ CEO at Frankfurter Buchmesse GmbH Frankfurt Book Fair, and has held management positions at Droemer Knaur Verlag (Munich), Carl Hanser Verlag (Munich), as well as Springer Science and Business Media (Berlin) and John Wiley & Sons (Weinheim). He became the executive director at the Ausstellungs-und Messe GmbH (Frankfurt Book Fair) in 2005, and is the president of LITPROM (Society for the Promotion of African, Asian, and Latin American Literature), and managing director of LitCam (Frankfurt Book Fair Literacy Campaign). He is also a member of both the Scientific Committee of Sheikh Zayed Book Award and the Akademie Deutscher Buchpreis (German Book Prize Academy).
Meanwhile, Boos also attended at The Book of Arts, an Indo-French initiative which aims at becoming an annual meeting for publishers, art curators, educationists and experts in art history. He was a part of a roundtable on ‘Art Books: Challenges and Perspectives’ which was moderated by publisher Marc Parent. Art expert Alka Pandey, Eric de Chassey, Priya Kapoor (Roli Books), Bipin Shah (Mapin Publishing), Priyanka Malhotra (Full Circle), Kishore Singh (Delhi Art Gallery), and Sanjoy Roy (Teamwork Arts) were also present at the roundtable. This session was held at the Experimental Arts Gallery of the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
During his visit, Boos also met publishers, printers, service providers, customers of the Frankfurt Book Fair, and various culture intermediaries in various cities in India. The primary agenda is to understand in detail the current scenario in the Indian publishing, print and other parallel industries, and to strengthen existing Indo-German ties in these industries, and forge new ones.
See All