Frankfurt Book Fair: Bridging cultures, crossing borders

The Frankfurt Book Fair, or Frankfurter Buchmesse, is not only the world's largest book fair, but also a place where ideas, culture and the future of publishing intersect.

Visitors to the Gutenberg printing press exhibition booth - Photo: NVCC

This year, the Frankfurt Book Fair takes place from October 15 to 19 at Messe Frankfurt, a ^400,000m2 complex, with more than 7,000 booths from over 100 countries.

On the first day, October 15, the queue was quite long, the atmosphere outside was bustling with giant banners welcoming the Philippines - this year's guest of honor. The Philippines brought a tropical corner in the heart of Europe, with a booth displaying books in Tagalog, English and colorful folk tales.

Philippines - guest country of honor at Frankfurt Book Fair

Hall 5 (Exhibition Area No. 5) has Vietnamese booths, including those of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Kim Dong Publishing House and Tre Publishing House, with nearly 100 delegates from more than 20 publishers introducing 1,200 books, promoting cultural identity and negotiating copyrights in Southeast Asia...

Covering an area of ​​approximately 30,000 square ^meters , Hall 5 is home to thousands of copyright negotiations, in-depth seminars and new book exhibitions, creating a vibrant atmosphere with a stream of experts, authors and publishers jostling among the colorful, multi-style and multi-lingual booths.

Hall 5 is always bustling: shelves lined with books, LED screens showing audiobook trailers, and networking sessions happening constantly. Events often revolve around trends like AI in publishing, audiobooks, and book-to-film conversions.

Hall 5 saw an increased Asian and Latin American presence, with representatives from China, Japan, India and the Philippines discussing colonial influences on vernacular literature.

The Philippines' exhibition booth is always crowded with visitors - Photo: NVCC

At Frankfurter Buchmesse 2025 , the Philippines is the "Guest of Honor", thanks to which it is assigned many booths in good locations and supported with many rich activities.

The book fair also displays materials about the Gutenberg printing press, the famous printing press invented by goldsmith Johann Gutenberg in the city of Strasburg in the 16th century.

It was this printing machine that fundamentally changed the printing industry, the publishing industry, and later the journalism industry of the whole world . This museum-like booth displays images, documents and models of the classic printing machine, and at the same time allows visitors to experience traditional printing activities...

The author and the finished product after experiencing traditional printing methods at the Korean exhibition booth - Photo: NVCC

Throughout the buildings, publishers, booksellers, printers, authors, etc. are seen negotiating; the seminars are always crowded with people watching, some sitting, some standing, along with activities to promote and introduce their books and publishers.

In Hall 1.0, there are many stalls selling German books, many young people enthusiastically choose and line up to wait to pay... In some places, there are some stalls that also sell souvenirs related to books and some types of stationery.

The stall of an Arab country did not sell books but introduced coffee and dried dates.

Every corner of the book fair is like a miniature city: bright LED lights illuminate thousands of new books, multilingual laughter echoes, activities of exchange, cooperation, learning...

Huge living library

Frankfurt Kids Conference in Hall 3.0, a colorful area dedicated to children's books. The scene here is like a giant playground with painting booths, virtual reality experiments about fairy tale worlds.

A slogan promoting audiobooks outside the Frankfurt Book Fair - Photo: NVCC

The scale of this section is also impressive, with more than a dozen panels and roundtable discussions, from picture books to graphic novels.

Statistics show that during the 5 days of the book fair, about 280,000 visitors from more than 130 countries flocked here, creating a "party" of books that never sleeps.

Everywhere you can smell the scent of new paper mixed with coffee from small shops, making attendees feel like they are entering a giant, lively library, where books are not only "sold" in many forms but also "lived" in many forms.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is not only a place to introduce books and publishers, but also a place for visitors to receive vivid lessons about literary globalization.

The huge scale with tens of thousands of visitors and thousands of diverse events is proof that books - a cultural bridge, transcending borders.

Frankfurt has urged and reminded the audience that: in the digital world, story is still king; that: in today's hectic life, books still have an important place.

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Nguyen Minh Hai

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/hoi-sach-frankfurt-cau-noi-van-hoa-vuot-qua-bien-gioi-20251029100637974.htm