Last year’s edition of the largest international book fair of the world, Buchmesse 2003, was supposedly the year of Russia. But apart from a few banners fluttering about, there was very little that was Russian about it. Japan, in fact, seemed to be the flavour of the week, in theme at least, reports Renuka Chatterjee, on her annual pilgrimage to Frankfurt, the Mecca of publishing deals

Why is Frankfurt one of those places that I cannot view with anything but a jaundiced eye? The pavements are so clean, you could eat off them. The traffic moves in orderly lines, with nary a horn to assault the eardrums. Rows of neat houses line each well-manicured park and square, windows shining, pretty little potted plants on the sill, each front door and roof painted in perfectly coordinated pastels.

So why is it more trepidation than admiration that overcomes me each time I step off a Lufthansa flight at Frankfurt? It’s all so sterile, so…so soulless, is my recurring thought. Like the film set of a perfect city, waiting for the people to be put in and bring it to life. There are people, of course, driving to work, shopping, taking their kids to school, doing all the normal everyday things people do, except that they do them at sound decibels too low for the human ear to hear and without, apparently, any time for frivolous chatter or loitering about.

The reason I never seem to have fun in Frankfurt is because I go there to work. My annual visit is always to attend the ‘Frankfurter Buchmesse’, the largest international book fair in the world, where publishers from around the globe gather to buy and sell rights to their books, and deals are struck in a multitude of languages and currencies. One hundred and two countries participated in the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2003, translating into a total of 6,611 exhibitors and 336,253 titles on display. I felt, to paraphrase the words of one of my favourite authors, Frank Simoes, like a very small brown Indian in a very big city. Is it any wonder then that my stomach gets tied up in knots at the thought of doing business in a gathering that includes the greatest of the great — publishers like Random House, Transworld, HarperCollins, Penguin and Knopf, many of whom publish over 1000 books each year — along with smaller imprints like Harvill and Phaidon, who make up in quality and reputation what they lack in numbers.

But if you’re a native of Frankfurt, the Messe which, with its multitude of pavilions, is a city unto itself — is where you can go to let your hair down and really have a blast. Or so it would appear. Each time I enter Halle 4, which houses the German publishers, I am taken aback by how much noisier it is than Halle 6, where publishers from France, Denmark, Switzerland and other European countries conduct their business in almost pin drop silence, or even Halle 8, the international hall, where though there is much to-ing and fro-ing between the Sonny Mehtas and Jane Friedmans of the world, all one can hear is a low buzz of conversation and the occasional tinkle of a wine glass (well, perhaps if you were HarperCollins making a bid of 250,000 dollars for a book, you wouldn’t want to shout it to Penguin next door) .

The Germans, on the other hand, laugh, talk and make bids at the tops of their voices, greet each other with gay abandon and generally make a picnic of the whole affair. It’s as if this is one part of the city where making a noise is allowed. More so this year than before. For one, Taschen, the German publisher, brought in Muhammed Ali on Day two of the fair. The boxing legend was there to release his book, Greatest of All Time: A Tribute to Muhammed Ali. It was the only book that Taschen had on display and they wouldn’t have had space for any others. Their entire stand had been transformed into a boxing ring, blads from the book were displayed all round, and a continuous A/V showed scenes from Ali’s life for the duration of the fair. Along with the boxer, Taschen also flew in his former trainer, Angelo Dundee, now 81, and photographer, Howard Bingham who had captured him on camera from the ’60s on. Hopefully, the crowds that thronged Halle 4 on the day were a harbinger of sales to come: the book is priced at 5,000 pounds sterling for the Champions Edition, which comes with four Bingham prints and a sculpture by American artist Jeff Koons, and 2,000 pounds sterling for the ordinary edition.

This was also the year that the fair authorities did what they’d been itching to do in earlier years: open the Messe to the public for more than one day. The Buchmesse traditionally starts on a Wednesday, and ends the following Tuesday, but is open to the public only on Monday. German publishers had long been gnashing their teeth over the sales they were losing, and they finally got their way. The Messe managing committee passed a diktat that instead of downing shutters at 6 p.m., all stands were to remain open until 8.30 p.m. on Day three, Friday, and the public allowed in during that time. Everyone but the Germans was disgruntled — after six, it’s time to hit the bar, exchange gossip, wash your hair. The powers that be offered a free glass of wine in the foyer of each hall as a sop (as if a single glass of wine could make up for the bottle of single malt you could be having!) but made sure blue-uniformed guards on bicycles patrolled each hall to catch any publisher attempting to pack up early, no doubt to take him off to some modern-day Auschwitz to repent for his sins.

HarperCollins could probably console themselves with having got UK and Commonwealth rights to Woody Allen’s biography, albeit for 1.2 million dollars. Bidding for US rights was under way, and had reached 2.5 million dollars by the end of the fair, with both Penguin and Knopf in the fray. The only catch being that the memoirs have yet to be written, and the filmmaker has, as yet, to confirm that he will, indeed, ever write them. Rights were sold on the basis of an 11-page proposal presented by his agent, and his promise to reveal all if he does write. Such is the madness of global publishing.

It was the year of Russia but, apart from a few banners fluttering about, there was very little that was Russian about it. Japan, in fact, seemed to be the flavour of the week, in theme at least. In fiction, one of the titles being talked about was Tsunami Nights, snapped up by Marianne Velmans for Doubleday/Transworld. This first novel by 25-year-old British author, Susan Barker, is set in Osaka, and deals with the world of ‘economy geishas’ and the ‘salary men’ who frequent Japan’s hostess lounges. Then, the new Indian discovery, Rana Dasgupta, whose novel was bought by Flamingo/ HarperCollins, also has Japan as a backdrop. The young British Indian writer’s as yet untitled first novel is set amongst passengers stranded overnight at an airport en route to Tokyo, who tell each other tales to pass the time.

Fortunately for Bangladesh writer, Monica Ali, author of Brick Lane, the Booker Prize was declared the week after Frankfurt (she didn’t win). But India stood its ground at the fair with a new title from Canada-based writer, Rohinton Mistry, bought by Sonny Mehta for Knopf in the US, for a sum both author and agent were reportedly ‘very, very happy with’, and a new Anita Desai — Hill of Silver, Hill of Lead, to be published soon in the UK by Chatto & Windus.

So another fair came to an end. I know there is a Frankfurt beyond the Messe, but I never get to see it, barring the occasional meal in a restaurant (Chinese, Indian, Italian but inexplicably never German!) and one year, a glimpse of the countryside when I took the wrong tube home. Did I say it was soulless? This time around, I began to discover I could be wrong, Perhaps, because I stayed in PG digs instead of a hotel. The retired couple who took care of me couldn’t have been friendlier, despite the fact that they spoke no English and I, no German. So, when I couldn’t understand what the jam I’d enjoyed at breakfast was made of, the old lady went upstairs to fetch a dictionary and show me ‘blueberries’ on the page. In a garden down the road, there were pet rabbits in a hutch — they became my landmark each evening as I tried to find my way home in the dusk, and their well-fed contentment was a comforting sight at the end of a hard day of bargaining.

And, one evening during that week, a friend from another publishing house took me out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. We arrived there, wet and bedraggled, having lost our way and walked a mile in the rain (neither of us having thought to carry an umbrella). The place was obviously expensive. We took our table self-consciously, trying to ignore the stares. At the end of the meal, we refused dessert and were rising to leave when the maitre d’ placed a silver platter of the most delectable chocolate confectionery on the table. He insisted we have some, compliments of the house, to make up for the trouble we’d had getting there. It’s taken me six years to find it, but after all, there is a little bit of soul in Frankfurt.