From the 22nd to the 26th of September, Marc de Gouvenain and Carina Brandt from the Pontas team attended the Göteborg Book Fair, on the West coast of Sweden: the most important yearly event of the publishing industry in Scandinavia.
Together or separately, they managed to go through very interesting meetings with publishers from Scandinavian countries as well as from France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands... Add to these a certain number of "mingles" - moments to meet contacts and friends in the book branch around a glass of wine or beer-, plus some rendez-vous outside the fair with authors like Jonas Jonasson and Christoffer Carlsson who chose Pontas as their international agency (in the pictures with Carina).
And with old friends like the acclaimed Swedish writers Per Olov Enquist and Lars Gustafsson, whose books in their time were translated and/or published by Marc in France (here below: Marc and Per Olov Enquist at the fair).
As Scandinavia will be the guest of honour at the Salon du Livre in Paris in March 2011, and considering years of experience, Marc had meetings with some of the Scandinavian institutions preparing the event, like Norla, Finlit and the Swedish Council for Culture. And Carina also had meetings with film producers interested in some of the books represented by Pontas.
Two weeks before the Frankfurt Book Fair, Göteborg is the place where a lot happens, in a more relaxed and discrete way. Many international editors and scouts interested in Scandinavia were there, not only looking for trendy thrillers, but with the idea of finding some literary works which can be added to their catalogues in two or three years time.
On the other hand, Scandinavian publishers looking for good books from outside their geographical area were happy to hear the Pontas news and tips about novels and authors from Portugal to New Zealand, from New Caledonia to Palestine.
Here below, more spontaneous photos taken with a Blackberry: Carina with Eva Gedin from Norstedts (Sweden); and Marc with Emilia Lodigliani from Iperborea (Italy).