This Year the Fair Celebrates a Record Attendance for Five Days of the Fair 35,879 People

Post Release December 2, 2014

On the evening of 30th November the 16th International Fair for High-Quality Fiction and Non-Fiction non/fictio№, held at the Central House of Artists on Krymskaya embankment, closed its doors.

This year the fair celebrates a record attendance – for five days of the Fair 35,879 people visited the Central House of Artists; it is the highest figure in the history of the fair. Previous “high score” was achieved in 2011 – that year 34,019 people visited non/fictio№ and concurrently held festival of international ideas “Around the World”.

“All non/fictio№ participants we managed to talk to are very happy - these last days of November demonstrated the interest of readers to the books. This fair is very necessary to Moscow as the only place where one can find such a number of good literature. People are waiting for this event and are purposefully preparing for it”, - says Boris Kupriyanov, Director of “Phalanstery” project.

“The Fair left the most positive impression. Everything is very well balanced, this year it is evidently more visitors - both book lovers waiting for new publications, and our colleagues from abroad: representatives of cultural foundations, emissaries of publishers, literary agents”, - says Mikhail Kotomin, director of Ad Marginem publishers.

“The fair is attended by thinking people, who seek new knowledge and are interested in not just buying some book, but also want to communicate with the authors, ask them questions. Non/fictio№ gives peace to the soul, it is a kind of intellectual outlet for all kinds of people, where the unifying principle is the book”, - says Olga Morozova, head of “Olga Morozova Publishers”.

At this year’s fair was presented 281 participants from 14 countries - large and small publishers, bookselling companies, literary associations and cultural foundations. On their stands, as always, to visitors of non/fictio№ was presented a rich and high-quality selection of books of various genres and directions: artistic, journalistic, memoirs, business, scientific and technical, humanitarian, educational, reference, gastronomic and children.

More than 30 foreign and 60 domestic writers, playwrights, scientists, artists and public figures took part in non/fictio№16 program of activities, which is invariably the essential part of the actual fair. The program included presentations of new books, meetings of authors with readers, round table discussions, literary awards and competitions, lectures, workshops and discussions about the most important processes in the book world.

A total of 500 events for five days of the fair were held at eight discussion areas, as well as on the stands of a number of publishers; with their readers met Svetlana Aleksievich, Yuri Arabov, Helena Bollessen (Denmark), Yuri Buida, Vladimir Voinovich, Goran Voinovich (Slovenia), Evgeny Grishkovets, Douglas Kennedy (USA), Alexander Kabakov, Alexander Nylin, Maxim Osipov, Gleb Pavlovsky, Leonid Parfenov, Mikhail Piotrowski, Zakhar Prilepin, Yuri Rost, Dina Rubina, Lars Svendsen (Norway), Alberto Toso Fei (Italy), Tatyana Tolstaya, Ulitskaya, Lena Eltang, Bengt Yangfeldt (Sweden) and many others.

Children were the non/fictio№16 Guest of Honor. In this regard the program of events, dedicated to childhood in general and children’s literature in particular - both in traditional playground “Territory of Knowledge”, and in the general program of the fair, was significantly expanded.

The theme of the children’s program 2014 – “The World is Open to me” – emphasizes the openness of the world in all its diversity and awakens the desire to learn it, through the book as well. On the “Territory of Knowledge” young readers met with the children’s writers and attended master classes given by illustrators, including Vladimir Alenikov, Marina Aromshtam, Maria Boteva, Nikolai Vorontsov, Olga Gromova, Boris Diodorov, Ksenia Dragunskaya, Natalia Nusinova, Svetlana Prudovskaya, Masha Slonim, Anton Soya and many other Russian authors, as well as Jean-Philippe Arrout-Vigneault and Elena Balsamo (France), Maria Bershadskaya (Belarus), Nora Mayorosh (Hungary), Tamta Melashvili (Georgia), Maria Kulik (Poland) Lena Sjöberg (Sweden), Abe Hiroshi (Japan).

A special mention deserves the Frankfurt Book Fair – the organizer of the united German stand, presenting book novelties from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and the Goethe Institute in Moscow that invited to “Children’s Forum” such writers and artists as Christian Duda, Alexander Klobouk, Tobias Kreytshi, Silke Lambek, Eva Muggenthaler, Birthe Müller, Rike Reiniger and famous comics master FLIX (Felix Gёrmann).

During the five days on the “Territory of Knowledge” were held non-stop various workshops, role-plays, interactive reading programs, quizzes, competitions and lectures for children. For this purpose was organized a series of thematic exhibitions – “Ernest and Celestine’s Room” (publishing house “Melik-Pashayev” and “Scooter”), “Treasure Island” (“Labyrinth Press” publishers), the area of workshops from the variety of leading children’s publishers (“Walking into History”, “Scooter”, “KompasGid”, “Pink Giraffe”, “Nastya and Nikita"”, “Rare bird” etc.). Children’s Lecture Hall at Polytechnic Museum and Publishing House “Clever” with the support of the Museum of Entertaining Science “Experimentanium” and the Children’s Center of Scientific Discovery “InnoPark Sokolniki” organized for schoolchildren an extensive program of lectures on natural sciences bias.

The theme of childhood was also reflected in the “adult” part of the program, which included activities directly related to children’s literature and children’s publishing. Among them – the presentation of the book by Maya Kucherskaya “Gospel stories for children”, master class from Linnor Goralik on “Turbid Gogol, boring Chekhov: or as not to frighten the child with great literature”, round table “Young reader of XXI Century” from the project “Public Reader Initiative”, discussion of the book “Living Persons, or Navigator on Contemporary Children’s Literature” of the Institute of World Literature of Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as a number of other events dedicated to the main task: to awaken a child’s interest in reading and to teach him to read - thoughtfully, intelligently and with love for the book.

Special guests of this year were German language and literature – the participation of German-speaking authors and illustrators of books in the program of non/fictio№16 has become one of the key events in the Year of the German language and literature in Russia. Program of events of special guests was formed by three countries – Austria, Germany and Switzerland.

The Austrian part of the program was presented by the children’s books publishers “Jungbrunnen”, founded in 1923 by “Österreichische Kinderfreunde” (Austrian Friends of Children) organization. 75% of the books of those publishers has been translated into foreign languages; the books were presented to their Russian readers at non/fictio№16 by the representative of this publishing house Anna Staher-Gfal and the head of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Moscow Simon Mraz presented.

The series of German events at the fair was organized by representation of the Frankfurt Book Fair in Moscow and the Goethe Institute in Moscow. In addition to above-mentioned lectures and workshops for children, at non/fictio№16 were held presentations of digest collections of German literary novelties featuring Thomas Geiger, one of the leaders of the ”Literary Colloquium Berlin” and Russian translators; report of Ulrike Nikel on the project “Berlin – Book Island”, the guest of honor of which in 2015 will be Russia; discussion on “Children and Books in Russia and Germany” with the participation of Russian and German children’s writers and representatives of the largest children’s publishing houses, as well as meetings with famous German comic artist Flix, which were attended by Russian experts in the field of publishing and selling comics.

The participation of Swiss writers in non/fictio№ program, the tradition of recent years, was an important part of the cultural exchange program Pro Helvetia Foundation “Swiss Made in Russia, 2013-2015”. This year, five authors from Switzerland visited Moscow – Ann Brecart, Nicolas Buri, Fleur Jaeggy, Frederick Peeters and Catalin Florescu, whose works have been translated into Russian and published in Russian publishing houses in 2014. The Swiss program also included the reading of fragments of works in the original and in Russian, followed by discussion of books and literary debate on the topic “Who am I? Does the Language Define Literary Identity?” and “From Autobiography to Fiction”.

In August 2014, died Boris Doubin - writer, poet, sociologist, translator, and citizen. Expert Council has dedicated this year’s non/fictio№ fair to his memory.

In this regard, the program included: the round table discussion “Dialogue with the Other” (the organizers - “International Memorial” and “New Literary Review”), the participants of which discussed the professional activities of Boris Vladimirovich and his role in the public space; and the meeting, organized by “Foreign Literature” magazine, which B.V. Doubin had worked for many years as a writer, and then became a member of the editorial board. Colleagues and friends of Boris Vladimirovich read his poems and translations and talked about this remarkable man.

This year has been greatly expanded the exhibition space of small publishers from all over the country – the members of the non-profit partnership “Alliance of Independent Publishers and Booksellers”.

49 small publishers – two collective stands in the main exhibition area – have participated this year’s fair. In addition, for the first time in the history of the fair were presented children’s publishing houses of “Independent Alliance” – also as the collective stand in the space of children’s section on the 3rd floor of the Central House of Artists.

Also for the first time in the history of non/fictio№ the small publishers participated in all kinds of activities: “Independent Alliance” organized Seminar Zone in the Hall 5, where during the five days of the fair was held a variety of activities - from discussions with Igor Knyazev, Bishop of Evangelical Lutheran Church, to the finals of All-Russian championship in reading aloud.

Section “Gastronomy”, which first appeared at non/fictio№ in 2013, has been significantly expanded this year - both by increasing the number of participants, and by the formation of a full program of activities covering a wealth of national cuisines of different nations, travel and geography.

Within this section were presented top-lists of gastronomic literature and communication platform for cooks and the fans of gastronomic art. During these days there was organized a series of very interesting meetings. Their participants were a well-known actress, TV presenter and writer Julia Vysotskaya (several of her books were presented on different days of the fair), the head of gastronomic literature publishing “CHERNOViK” Sergey Chernov, chefs Alexey Dytchenkov, Artem Knyazev, Giuseppe Todisko, popular chefs and bloggers Hakim Ganiyev, Nina Makogon, Sergei Milyanchikov, Alexander Seleznev and many others. Of particular interest was the Saturday performance of Stalik Khankishiyev, who first invited the audience to cook and taste pilaf outdoors, and then presented his new book “Cauldron. Culinary tutorial”.

For the first time in the history of non/fictio№ was presented an educational program on the theory and history of illustration, the role of text and images in the book layout. The curators of this program were Elena Rymshina, the lecturer at the HSR Art and Design School, and Victor Melamed, lecturer at the British School of Design.

Forum of illustrators was held at non/fictio№ on Sunday, November 30th, and lasted the whole day. For a full-house audience consisting primarily of students of printing and art universities, were lecturing the leading educators and designers: Boris Trofimov (Institute of Business and Design), Maria Cheloyants and Dmitry Devishvili (S.G. Stroganov Moscow State Art and Industry Academy), Alexander Kuznetsov (Design School at the Higher School of Economics), Andrew Logvin (studio LogvinDesign), Yuri Surkov (AGI), Ivan Velichko (design Bureau “Schuka”), Dmitry Yakovlev (festival of comics and illustrations “Boomfest”), Irina Troitskaya and Victor Melamed (BSD).

As always, not only fans of modern literature attend the fair at the Central House of Artists – a special section in Hall 5 has been allocated to “Antique books”. In addition, concurrently with non/fictio№16 has been held 11th fair of vinyl, CD and accessories – VINYL CLUB, which has become a familiar meeting place for collectors and connoisseurs of rare editions.

Press about non/fictio№16:

Maya Koucherskaya, “Vedomosti”, November 26, 2014:

"The most favorite book fair for intellectuals has quietly managed to become a mature teenager - this year it has turned sixteen. And for all this time it has never ever disappointed us. For it is still nice to wander around, to say “Hello!” to old friends, who you meet once a year only here, eagerly sniffing and examining new books, that are getting only more beautiful with each year”.

Anastasia Skorondayeva, “Rossiyskaya Gazeta”, November 26, 2014:

“This is not just a fair, it is some kind of a holiday for intellectuals bibliophiles!”

Natalia Dardykina, “Moskovsky Komsomolets”, November 27, 2014:

“Book Fair is the long-awaited joyous event for book-lovers and collectors, and a holiday for us, the readers, who are in love with the books”.

International Fair for High-Quality Fiction and Non-Fiction non/fictio№17 will be held November 25 – 29 2015 at the Central House of Artists.

See You next year!